LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Shelf -iS-lHsL. ' 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



A Political Creed; 



Embracing Some Ascertained Truths 



IN SOCIOLOGY ^t^ POLITICS. 



AN ANSWER 



H. GEORGE'S "PROGRESS i.^^ POVERTY." 



/ 



BY G. MANIGAULT 
I' 



>^^. 



c- 



Formerly of South Carolina. 




NEW YORK; 
Wynkoop & Hallendeck, Printers, p » 
12 1 Fulton Street. 



1884. 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1884, by G. Maniqault, 
in the Oflflce of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



PREFACE. 



Not wishing to make a Ijook^ I Lave compressed this 
into as comjDact a space as is compatible with a compre- 
hensive treatment of the subject. I have called it an 
answer to " Progress and Poverty," by Henry George ; 
but it was written before I had seen his book, which I 
have read but lately. For if one be true, the other must 

be false. As to that, let the reader decide. 

G. M. 



A POLITICAL CREED, 



EMBRACING 



Some Ascertaliiei Triitlis in Sociology anl Politics. 



From before the days of Plato and Aristotle down to 
our own time, many of the most acute minds have been 
striving to discover, and to explain, the principles on 
which human society and political organizations are, and 
ought to be, based. Yet, to this day, in the different 
schools of politics and social science, the most opposite 
and incompatible views are maintained by numerous and 
able advocates. How far, then, is it possible to draw 
out, from the results of experience and reason, a con- 
nected system of principles in these sciences, so well 
founded and obvious as to command the general assent 
of right-thinking men ? 

Setting aside all the authority we might derive from 
revealed, and, as far as possible, from natui-al religion, in 
proof that society and government are not merely of 
man' s device, I will enter on a search after the ascer- 
tained and admitted truths in sociology and politics, and 
endeavor to trace the connection of these truths with, 
and their dependence on, each other. 
2 



I. 

In this mysterious and puzzling world in which we 
find ourselves existing, what means have we of ascer- 
taining the truths which should enlighten and guide us ? 
We find ourselves to be organized beings, endowed not 
only with certain appetites, instincts, and powers of ac- 
tion ; but, also, with the means of observing the phe- 
nomena surrounding and pressing upon us ; and, more- 
over, with a capacity and a propensity to draw inferences 
from these phenomena, when collected and compared 
with each other. Thence we arrive at conclusions, which 
we take to be laws regulating the occurrence and effects 
of these phenomena. 

The want of leisure and of experience make this slow 
work. Yet we gradually acquire some knowledge of the 
nature of our surroundings. We make frequent mis- 
takes, indeed, which we have to correct by further and 
more careful observation ; and we make some real prog- 
ress in knowledge. 

We discover that, besides the material world that sur- 
rounds us, there are intellectual truths which spring 
from our observation of it, embracing and explaining it ; 
which truths may be brought to bear upon, and, in a 
measure, direct and control matter. 

We, moreover, discover that, while the mass of mate- 
rial objects with which we come in contact are organized 
beings, the law of that Kature which gave them existence 
does not endow them with permanence. Yet we see 
that it provides, by some means, for maintaining and re- 
placing its productions as they pass away, filling up the 
gaps among its organized beings with a succession of be- 
ings similar to those that are passing away. This is one 



broad general law of Nature, applying to organized crea- 
tures, which we arrive at with a certainty that shuts out 
all doubt. 

Further observation shows us that Nature attains this 
end by stamping on her organized creatures the relations 
of sex. All animals and all plants partake of these char- 
acteristics in one form or another. In the case of plants 
these relations are not so simple and obvious. But we 
soon learn that animals are divided into male and female, 
in various proportions. 

Thus we soon become familiar with another comj^re- 
hensive law of Nature : that organized life is maintained, 
not by the permanence of the individuals, but by their 
reproducing offspring like themselves, and that this re- 
production is brought about through the agency of the 
division of each class of animals, and even of plants, into 
two sexes, male and female. Thus, we are beginning to 
master some of the great laws of Nature, by which she 
regulates the world we live in. 

When we turn our attention to our own race we see an 
explanation of the instinct which usually leads to the 
mutual choice and companionship of one man and one 
woman : that is, to life-long, monogamous marriage, and 
to the many domestic and social proprieties springing 
from it. Many facts prove that this is the design of 
Nature. 

1. In all countries and ages there is an approach to 
equality in the number of male and female births. Yet 
there is always, as far as we know, a small excess of male 
births over the female. Why is this provided ? As men, 
from their occupations and enterprises, are more exposed 
than women to be cut off by accidental and violent 
deaths, especially in boyhood and early manhood, this 



sliglit excess in the birth of males looks very like an ex- 
press design in ISTature to provide for monogamous mar- 
riage by equalizing the number of the two sexes. The 
proportions of the two sexes in human births vary some- 
what : from thirteen males to twelve females, to about 
twenty-five males to twenty-four females. The causes of 
these varying proportions, we believe, have not been as- 
cdl'tained. 

2. Unlike other animals, the offspring of mankind, 
need the care and support of both parents for a long 
term of years. Thus the naitural claim of both wife and 
children for maintenance, and on the property acquired, 
is obvious, and points to a life-long marriage, and sug- 
gests the obligation of monogamy. 

3. The analogy of the instincts of not a few animals, 
in their unions, proves that monogamous marriage may 
be strictly according to Nature. Thus, wdiile in the hive 
of the honey-bee, there are thousands of workers, which 
are neuters, hundreds of drones, who are males, and only 
one female, the queen bee, we find, on the other hand, 
that the cajpreolus, or roe-buck, the pigeon, the goose, the 
ostrich, and many other animals, are strictly monogamous 
in their unions. 

The more we investigate this point, the more obvious 
does it become that human society naturally originates in 
the monogamous marriage, and is based on the family 
springing from it. Where monogamous marriage is not 
the foundation of the family and of society, could we 
look back far enough, we would find oiit that some 
peculiar circumstances, some unnatural causes, have dis- 
turbed the order of Kature, driving the human race to 
polygamy or polyandry. 

Howeyer the human race may have originated, we 



9 

know that man does not now come into the world a solitary 
being. He has at least a known mother ; and should he 
lose lier at the time of his birth, his continued existence 
depends on some one who supplies her place. 

Usually we come into life the expected and welcomed 
.member of a family circle. We are born into society. 
Our relations with kindred beings beginning with our 
birth, our self-seeking and our social propensities are de- 
veloped together through the long years of infancy and 
early youth. Tlius the first society known to us is the 
family circle ; the first government, parental control. 
And we necessarily continue under these infiuences un- 
til we can provide for ourselves ; indeed, usually and 
naturally, until long after that earlier period of life. 
Moreover, we are ever after under some social influences 
— unless we become outlaws. 

II. 

From the most primitive condition of man, to the most 
advanced stage of civilization yet reached, all the neces- 
saries, conveniences, and comforts of life are the results 
of the labor and skill of individuals, working singly, or 
in combination ; but the primary object of each one is to 
reap, individually, the profit of his toil. For, although 
the world we live in affords to us fields of labor teem- 
ing with productions capable of being adapted to useful 
and beneficial purposes, they are not directly given to 
us. They are merely placed, more or less, within our 
reach ; not thrust into our hands or our mouths. It is 
left to us, when prompted by our wants, to help our- 
selves, by appropriating them. These acts of appropria- 
tion require, on our part, more or less of enterprise, 



10 

labor, and perseverance ; and, moreover, are often attended 
with exhausting exertions, uncertain success, and even 
suffering and danger to those who make them. This out- 
lay of labor, skill, and hazard, becoming inextricably in- 
corporated with our acquisitions, originates our propri- 
etary right ; that is, our right to exclude from the benefit 
of our acquisitions, those who have made no such expendi- 
ture of their energies on the materials thus brought into 
our possession or laid up for our use. 

Thus, all value and utility, being the result of the labor 
of individuals, comes into existence in the possession of, 
and as the property of, individuals. Until there be prop- 
erty, there can be neither robbery nor theft. As soon 
as property comes into existence, robbery and theft 
become possible, and must be guarded against. In those 
cases, where the acquisition is the result of combined 
labor and united exertions, the undertaking is not com- 
plete until each one has assigned to him his share of the 
result. Thus proprietary right at once furnishes the 
motive for, and the reward of, our exertions to maintain 
and to better our condition. 

III. 

]^ATUBE makes similar provision for supplying the 
wants of animals ; not feeding them, or sheltering them, 
but putting within their reach the means of feeding and 
sheltering themselves. Moreover, man's earliest education 
was the observation of the instincts of animals ; especially 
as , shown in procuring their food, and . securing their 
safety. 

The study of the animal kingdom affords us abundant 
proofs that property is deeply founded in nature, and that 



11 

animals, bj instinct, claim proprietary rights which are 
respected by others of their own species. The nests built 
by birds become their property, nndispnted by others of 
their kind, and usually by those of other kinds. 

So general is this respect paid to proprietorship in the 
nest, that naturalists have been long surprised and 
puzzled at the intrusive habit of the cuckoo as an anomaly 
in Kature. For the cuckoo, laying a veiy small q^^^ for 
a bird of its size, often deposits one in the nest of some 
small bird. When this ^^g is hatched, the young cuckoo 
rapidly out-grows its companions, to whom its unwelcome 
company is often fatal. Shakespeare makes the young 
cuckoo the type of ingratitude, expressing it in the fol- 
lowing lines : 

" The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long, 
That it had its head bitten off by its young." 

In the case of the eagle and some other birds, this prop- 
erty in the nest apparently continues, not only during 
the breeding season, but for life. So the burrows and 
dens of many quadrupeds, beasts of prey, and others, 
continue in their possession for years, undisturbed by 
others of their own kind. The squirrel makes a store- 
house of his hollow tree, providing against the winter's 
dearth ; and the hamster-rat burrows into the earth, and 
stores its cellars, with similar providence. ISTor does the 
law of community of goods apply to these stores, except 
in cases where, like that of the honey-bee, one mother 
unites a whole community into one family, as in the 
hive. 

Even the most timid animals often show unexpected 
spirit and resources in the defense of their homes and 
their young. But bees, wasps, ants, and many other 



12 

species, build up elaborate homes, and store them with 
food, against the season of scarcity in each year ; and 
they value not their lives in a patriotic war in defense of 
their citadel. 

The evidence from natural history, proving proprietary 
rights, is especially clear and strong as to local proprietor- 
ship, corresponding with what is termed in law landed prop- 
erty. Dogs show a deep conviction as to the sacredness 
of their masters' rights of ]3roperty, both movable and fixed. 
The shepherd's dog takes charge of hundreds of his mas- 
ter's sheep ; and never mistakes those of some neighbor 
for part of the flock under his care. Even the domesti- 
cated herd will resent the intrusion of others of their 
kind on their special pasture. 

Although it is evident that ISTature intended that many 
species of animals should prey upon others of different 
race from themselves, yet it is obvious that instinct has 
stamped on most animals a respect for some of the pro- 
prietary rights of individuals of their own kind. 

However much the experience, observation, and rea- 
son of mankind may have developed the instinctive 
promptings of Nature into a more complete and complex 
system of rights of property than that which sufficed in 
a primitive state of society ; yet property and proprietary 
rights, in their essential elements, are founded ©n the 
instinct of animals, including man himself. 

lY. 

The spontaneous productions of ISTature, which supply 
the wants of animals, especially of man, are limited in 
quantity, even in the most fertile lands. Moreover, 
periods of abundance and of scarcity mark different 



13 

years, and different seasons of tlie same year. Both men 
and animals are always tending toward an increase of 
numbers far beyond that which the spontaneous yield of 
the richest soil can maintain. 

But the appropriation, by individual men, of parts of 
the earth's surface to their private and exclusive use, 
leads gradually but rapidly to the incorporation, with 
each of these localities, of so much of the occupant's in- 
dustry, skill, foresight, and economy, that the hunting- 
ground, which scantily supplied the wants of one savage, 
now maintains hundreds of industrious and civilized men. 
This wonderful and beneficent multiplication of produce 
results simply from civilized man's having incorporated 
so much of his own industry, skill, and enterprise with 
the material basis which nature afforded him to work on. 

Thus, the regions roamed over by the hunting tribes of 
North America did not then support one human being to 
the square mile. Australia, a far more barren continent, 
did not then, perhaps, support one to the square league. 
Now both of these regions, through that industry, enter- 
prise, and economy generated by the possession of pri- 
vate property, especially in land, are furnishing abun- 
dant provision for rapidly multiplying millions, which 
yet fall far short of approaching the maximum of the 
population these countries can sustain. 

Yet it would be only necessary persistently to violate 
and overthrow this right of private property in land for a 
generation or two, to reduce these regions again to the 
savage and desolate condition from which they have been 
redeemed in very modern times. Proprietary rights are 
not the device of man's selfish ingenuity ; but the char- 
tered rights of property are stamped by Nature on the 
instincts of animals, and especially of the animal man. 
2* 



14 



Y. 



PowEBFUL as is the impulse which drives men to seek 
the gratification of their own wants ; and much as this 
impulse tends to promote their welfare and progressive 
improvement ; there is another natural motive which 
urges them to industry, enterprise, and foresight ; and 
tends yet more directly toward social progress and 
civilization. It is the instinctive desire to provide 
for and to protect their own offspring, and those 
naturally dependent upon them. We see this instinctive 
care of their offspring strongly and invariably manifested 
in animals of almost every species. It shows itself as 
strongly, but not so invariably, in the human race. We 
will not stop now to explain why this instinct is less uni- 
versal and unvarying with mankind than with other 
animals. But it is evident that the long and helpless 
infancy of man's offspring makes the prolonged care and 
protection of the parent more necessary to children than 
to the young of other animals. And the fact that man- 
kind have continued to exist and to multiply, is proof 
that parental neglect and improvidence have been the 
exception, and not the rule. 

The obligation to provide for their offspring is so pro- 
longed with mankind, that it generates the necessity of 
exercising industry and foresight beyond the promptings 
of mere instinct — suggesting the collecting and keeping 
of the means of long fulfilling this duty. This leads to 
the laying up of a lasting supply — that is, property — 
and points out that the violation of proprietary rights is 
a crime against individuals, and against Nature's laws. 

In the most primitive and isolated condition of society 
in which we can imagine the human race to have existed, 



15 

the savage hunter pursued or lay in wait for his prey, to 
supply, not only himself, but his family with food. T^ot 
merely the selfish, but equally the social and domestic 
instincts also, at once stimulated and controlled his indus- 
try and enterprise. If the bounty of Nature continues 
to furnish a liberal maintenance to the hunter and to his 
family, in a generation or two this family becomes a 
tribe, governed, or at least much influenced, by their com- 
mon ancestor, while he lives ; and at his death, one of the 
elder and more energetic of his sons succeeds as the head 
of the tribe. For unity in counsel and in action is essen- 
tial to the welfare and even the safety of this young and 
small community. 

Society and rudimentary government thus make one 
step beyond the most primitive social condition we can 
imagine. The family becomes a tribe under patriarchal 
rule. This supplies the need of a more extended union 
for the mutual protection of the rights of each individ- 
ual. But it deprives the individual of no rights he may 
have acquired. Nor does it displace the parental author- 
ity in the household, for that continues to be as neces- 
sary as ever. 



VI. 



Yarious circumstances, local and accidental, may have 
influenced the tirst formation of government. But the 
need of some political organization of society is soon felt 
in every age and country. It is needed to counteract the 
evil dispositions which never fail to manifest themselves 
in a marked degree, in at least some individuals, in every 
community. 

Natural affection prompts most parents to exert them- 



16 

selves to provide for the wants of their children, stim- 
ulating them to industrj^, enterprise, and providence. 
But some evil-disposed persons seek to appropriate to 
themselves the proceeds of the labors of others. Thus : 
One savage gathers a quantity of fruit, or, after contriv- 
ing the implements needed in hunting or fishing, kills 
his game, or catches his fish. Another of the same 
tribe, less industrious or skillful, seeks to supply his own 
wants, by stealing the fruit, game, or fish, or perhaps 
the hunting or fishing implements, from him who has ac- 
quired them by honest industry. Or he may attempt to 
rob him of them by force. The party wronged naturally 
tries to defend and right himself, and he seldom fails to 
find allies to aid him. 

For even in the most primitive society, even in the 
tribe and the family, all but the culprit see the need of 
combining to prevent and punish offenses which, if un- 
restrained, would dissolve all social intercourse, and 
starve out the race. Hence originates the administration, 
by society, or by the head of it, of justice between its 
members, in order to protect them from each other. 
This is done, not by making a general law in the first in- 
stance, but by deciding a particular case, which serves as 
a precedent for the decision of similar cases in the future-, 
thus laying the foundation of a general law. 

This internal need of a government, to restrain lawless 
conduct within society, is felt wherever society exists. 
Even in the family, the parent has to protect the younger 
brother from the elder ; and, perhaps, the sister from 
both. All mankind, perhaps without exception, need 
some infiuence, external to themselves, to assist them in 
regulating and controlling their own conduct. 



17 



YIL 

Another imperious need for giving a political organ- 
ization to society — an agency to direct and control the 
combined strength of all its members — is soon felt from 
the necessity of resisting violent attacks from without. 

It is possible, nay, probable, that men first learned to 
combine and organize their means of defense in resist- 
ing powerful beasts of prey. The lion and the tiger 
may have been, indirectly, the agents in reuniting the 
wandering and scattered tribe into a more compact so- 
ciety. The Ursus SpelcBus and the Felis Sjyelma, now 
extinct, were far more powerful than the bears and lions 
of this day, and they were cotemporaries with primitive 
man. They must have been formidable enemies, com- 
pelling men to improve their weapons and fortify their 
places of refuge against them. Those lacustrine vil- 
lages, the ruinous foundations of which have of late 
years been discovered in some Swiss lakes and elsewhere, 
may have originated in the effort to secure safe shelter 
from these powerful beasts of prey. Successful defense 
against such antagonists first, and soon, led men to be- 
come bold and skillful hunters of these and other beasts 
they formerly dreaded. 

But primitive man soon found more dangerous ene- 
mies than beasts of prey. Among savages, who live 
chiefly by the chase, the necessity of wandering far in 
quest of game tended to break up and scatter the hu- 
man race into many small tribes, keeping them alienated 
from each other. Any one of these tribes might find 
or invent causes of hostility against another. The mere 
killing of game in their neighborhood, viewed as a tres- 
pass, might excite their animosity, and thus lead to war. 



18 

Then would arise the need of organizing the strength of 
each community, in order to repel the assaults of an ex- 
ternal human enemy. 

Here, then, are two needs which very soon render it 
necessary to give society a political organization. Man, 
associating with his fellow man, needs a government to 
protect his rights from the encroachments of his fellows. 
And there is equal need for this political organization in 
order to repel violent attacks from without. But it is 
difficult to point out any other purpose for which it is 
necessary to call into action the intervention of govern- 
ment to promote the good of mankind. 

If man's own instinct, and his reason and experience, 
were slow to prompt him to unite into organized society, 
he might derive many useful hints by observing the 
habits of the animals around him. Close scrutiny of the 
strongholds of the bee and the ant would reveal to him 
multitudes united into well-ordered communities, each 
individual having his appointed duty, and the division of 
labor well understood and practised among them. Valu- 
able lessons might be learned from the gregarious quad- 
rupeds and birds. The flocks of the chamois and the 
mouffion while at pasture always have sentinels posted 
around them to give the alarm on the approach of an 
enemy. The same is the custom of many other species 
of beasts and birds. 

Animals have, too, their leaders. The herd of red 
deer follows the lead of some antlered stag. The wild 
horses of the^^mj?^^, that of some stately stallion. And 
huge bulls lead the bison herds of the North American 
prairies. The wild geese are marshalled for their migra- 
tory flight into wedge-shaped order, some strong-winged 
male leading at the apex of the wedge. Some gregarious 



19 

birds, especially those of the crow kind, eren seem to 
hold parliaments, or grand courts of justice, and to con- 
demn some notorious offenders, after public trial, to pub- 
lic execution. As to Rousseau's dream that 23olitical so- 
ciety originated in, or was founded on, a Contrat Social / 
the history of man affords no more proof of it than 
the natural history of animals, including the animal, 
man. 

All were born into society, and could have taken no 
part in making the contract on which Rousseau assumes 
that society was based. 

YIII. 

l^EiTHER history nor tradition run back to the time 
when human society and government in its various forms 
first came into existence. But w^e have some rude ex- 
amples, in very modern times, which are very suggestive 
of the conditions under which men may be prompted, 
and even compelled, to organize a government for their 
own protection. For example : 

During the rapid settlement of North America, within 
the last two or three centuries, by people of European 
origin, there has always been a frontier population push- 
ing on, from various motives, far beyond the settled 
country, into the interior of the continent. This fron- 
tier population was made up of various elements. Many 
enterprising men, fond of adventure, felt or imagined 
that their exertions were cramped by the growing density 
of the population around them, and sought wider and 
less occupied fields for their pursuits. Many others, too, 
who had failed in their undertakings at their original 
homes, often from want of industry or prudence, sought 



20 

to begin life again in a new home, wliicli promised less 
competition and greater facilities for success. 

But not a few sought the frontier merely to |)nt them- 
selves out of reach of the law and of the civil authority, 
which would no longer tolerate their lawless careers. 
But 

" Ccelum, not animiim mutant, qui trans mare currunt." 

And migration to the utmost frontier, or beyond it, did 
not change the character or conduct of this latter class. 
It only gave freer scope to their propensities to evil. 
Here, in the Far West, beyond the pale of the law and 
of civilization, this reprobate class, by fraud, robbery, 
and violence, soon became intolerable nuisances to all 
those who sought to live there in peace and safety, and 
thrive by honest industry, not by depredating on others. 

In the absence of the regular administration of justice, 
the better class of frontiersmen are compelled to com- 
bine, and take the law into their own hands, and thus 
maintain justice and civil order in their midst. By more 
or less rude and summary measures they rid the neigh- 
borhood of these foes to civil society. Their operations, 
directed against outlaws, are a sort of mean between 
executing civil process and waging open war. And 
doubtless, in such cases, many acts of extreme violence, 
of mistaken justice, and of tyranny, occur in their rude 
efforts to bring order out of chaos, to protect rights 
against wrongs. 

But in more remote times, and in other lands, many a 
local government of as rude an origin has gradually 
improved its organization and its administration, so as to 
serve well its purpose — the protection of private rights. 

Accidental circumstances might vary the original form 



21 

of these eai'ly polities. Usually, some leader of marked 
talent and energy, stamped on it the monarchical type. 
Sometimes a combination of leading men might found an 
aristocracy or an oligarcliy. Some unusually favoring 
occurrences might give it a republican character. But a 
true democracy would be hard to find, so cumbrous and 
evanescent is that form. 

IX. 

We. may observe that in all the cases that originate a 
.necessity for a government, in order to secure men's 
rights, and preserve social order, the law does not pretend 
to create or grant rights, but only to protect rights 
already existing, and those which individuals may here- 
after acquire for themselves. 

But the very exercise of this duty of protecting rights 
develops, more or less rapidly, the perception of rights 
which, at first, may escape the notice of primitive legis- 
lation. 

Thus, men are naturally prompt in making promises, 
and entering into contracts, but not so prompt in fulfill- 
ing them. But when society has once recognized the 
wrongfulness of appropriating, by stealth or violence, the 
product of another's industry, and has learned to resist 
the wrong, and to punish the wrong-doer, it needs but 
one step further in reasoning, to lead to the conviction 
that a breach of contract is also an offense ; and that each 
one in the community is interested in compelling the 
contractor to fulfill his contract. For the breach of it is 
but a more insidious mode of depriving a man of the 
fruits of his industry. 

As men exercise their reason and conscience, the field 



of inquiry and of judgment as to social duties enlarges 
itself rapidly. Thus, men instinctively recognize the 
obligation which I*^ature and their own acts have laid upon 
them, to provide for and protect their own families and 
those naturally dependent upon them. They learn to 
recognize certain rights as vested in each member of their 
household. They extend this feeling, or conviction, so 
as to apply it to the families of their neighbors also. 
While recognizing the need of great authority and power 
in the head of each household, they learn to include 
every one in the tribe or community, as vested with cer- 
tain rights, and under the tribe's protection. They lose 
esteem for, and confidence in, those who obviously neg- 
lect their domestic obligations. Some monstrous act of 
domestic tyranny, some gross outrage against a wife or a 
child, opens tlieir eyes to the fact that a man may com- 
mit a crime against his own family, as well as against his 
neighbor ; and that the community is interested in pre- 
venting such oSenses by punishing the offender. 

X. 

Man is born a hunter, like the beasts of prey. But, 
unlike them, as he improves liis condition, he is con- 
stantly changing the object of his chase and his modes of 
pursuing them, showing increasing ingenuity and cun- 
ning in his progress. 

As men multiply on the face of the earth, the spon- 
taneous products of nature available for their mainte- 
nance, begin to fail them. A large area of territory is 
needed to support the primitive tribes, while they de- 
rive their whole subsistence from the fruit they can 
gather and the game they can kill. Even in the wide 



23 

territory open to their wanderings, scarcity, at times 
rising to famine, often thins their number. In some 
favorable situations, the catching of fish supplied more 
abundant food, and this art and industry was probably 
practised as soon as that of hunting. But it is almost as 
uncertain in its results. 

The rearing of domesticated animals to furnish men 
with food requires far less territory than the hunter 
needs to supply him with game, and it is a far more 
reliable resource. But we know not when, where, or 
under what circumstances men made this first great step 
in bettering their condition, or what animal they first 
reduced to servitude. On the other hand, we know that 
some races of men failed to make this progressive step 
where it was fully within their power. 

The hunting tribes of North America derived a large 
part of their living from the slaughter of whole herds of 
the bison. Yet there is no record of their ever having 
even attempted to domesticate this animal, which might 
have supplied the place of the bull and cow of the old 
continent, and thus have enabled them to enter on a prof- 
itable industry, on which they might have built up a 
civilization. The bison has been reared in servitude, as 
an experiment. It furnishes beef, milk, butter, cheese, 
hides, etc., but being, on the whole, less useful than the 
common cow, notliing is gained by breeding them. 

It is yet more strange that the Mexicans, who, if we 
can believe the historians who have searched into their 
antiquities, had made great progress in many high and 
ingenious arts, under the greatest disadvantages ; who 
had cultivated a literature, made progress in systematic 
legislation, and built up a complicated civilization — yet 
they allowed the bison, which was within their reach, 



24 

probably, in the winter season, within tbeir territories, 
to continue roving wild over the length of the conti- 
nent, without making any attempt to tame them. The 
only animal mentioned by historians as tamed and reared 
in Mexico, under its ancient and puzzling civilization — 
was the turkey. 

We might have been tempted to class, among the in- 
stincts of the human race, a propensity to domesticate 
inferior animals, did we not know that some races of 
men never attempted it, or, at least, never succeeded in 
it, under circumstances a23parently favoring success. 
Some countries, indeed, afforded no animal, or, at least, 
no quadruped, suitable to, and profitable in, servitude. 
The Australian could hardly have tamed and reared flocks 
of the kangaroo. 

XL 

It is likely that the first animal anywhere tamed was 
the dog. It must have often happened that the hunter 
caught alive the young of wild animals ; and sometimes 
he would bring them home unharmed. Among these, 
the young of the dog was easily tamed, feeding on the 
refuse of the family meal, and becoming the pet of the 
children. He would promptly attach himself to the 
household, and his useful qualities soon show themselves. 
He becomes a vigilant sentinel and incorruptible guardian 
over the family and their property. His propensity to 
hunt after game, and his keen scent in tracing its foot- 
steps, render him soon an invaluable ally to the hunter. 

But the domestication of the dog was not the begin- 
ning of pastoral life. It merely facilitated man's en- 
trance on that occupation ; the dog aiding his master to 



25 

catcli and keep other animals more fit to compose the 
flock and the herd. Men did not rear dogs to supply 
themselves with food — althongh, in some countries, the 
dog became an occasional article of diet ; and it has hap- 
pened, at times, that a hunting tribe, reduced to extreme 
want, have eaten their dogs, in a vain effort to escape 
starvation. 

It is likely that many haphazard trials were made by 
primitive men to domesticate animals, before they found 
out what species were most fit for it, in each part of the 
world, most easily reared and kept ; and most useful as 
food, and for other purposes. In some countries the 
range of choice was very narrow. The camel, in the 
more sterile parts of Arabia, the reindeer, in Lapland, 
and the llama, in Peru, found there no rivals. In more 
favored countries and climates, we know that the sheep, 
the goat, the cow, the swine, the ass, aud then the horse, 
fell under man's control at very early dates. 

As soon as men became shepherds and herdsmen their 
condition, resources, and habits underwent great changes 
and improvements. Hunting ceased to be their necessary 
and almost daily toil, and became only their occasional 
sport. But as long as wild game is to be found they 
never give up the pursuit of it. 

Still, the possession of flocks and herds revolutionized 
their condition. The proprietary rights of individuals 
now extended beyond that over dead game, to the pos- 
session of many living animals, and to the right of free 
pasturage for their herds. But the necessity of following 
their flocks on a change of pasture compelled them to 
live in tents, and they did not then claim permanent 
property in any fixed domicil. 

Having now a steady and comparatively certain supply 



26 

of food, not only in the flesh of their herds, but in the 
milk and its proceeds, men could congregate together, 
uniting in large tribes. The more ample leisure and 
more abundant materials at their hands, led to the im- 
provement of known arts, and to the invention of others 
hitherto unpractised. 

The very need of seeking fresh pastures from the ex- 
haustion of that in their neighborhood, or from the 
change of season, habituated them to moving in a body, 
with all their possessions around them, and fully prepared 
for a long march. This taught them the need of order 
and method in their common movements, and formed the 
tribe into an organized body-politic, recognizing the 
guidance of one head. 

On becoming shepherds and herdsmen, men made a 
vast stride forward in social, political, and military or- 
ganization. For this aggregation of herdsmen into one 
body, often on the move in search of wide and fertile 
pastures, consisted of men trained to the use of weapons 
in hunting and in the defense of their flocks. And the 
command of the speed and strength of the horse had 
now added greatly to the ease and celerity of their move- 
naents. The habitual organization of society was now 
like that of a corjps d^'armee already in the field, with its 
chief at its head, and its magazines and its commissariat 
close at hand. Under able, enterprising, and aggressive 
leaders, these restless nomads have often been method- 
ically united into vast hordes, which, abandoning their 
native stepi^es in a mass, a migrating nation, have many 
a time revolutionized the political and social condition of 
the greater part of the old world ; overrunning, subduing, 
and, at times, exterminating, almost extirpating, the pre- 
vious population. {See Institutes of Timour.) But these 
devastating marches are foreign to our present inquiry. 



27 



XII. 



Gkeat as were the results of this adoption of pastoral 
industry as a settled means of living, it did not enable 
men to reap the full profits of the bounties of Nature. 
Although pastoral hordes formed multitudes, vast when 
compared with the small and scattered tribes of hunters, 
they were yet but a sparse population in comparison with 
that which the soil of the earth could j)rovide for. 

The culture of the soil was the next great step made 
by men ; thus bettering their condition, by increasing 
their supply of food, and the certainty of it. And this 
change in occupation and industry brought many unfore- 
seen consequences and benefits, and also some evils, in its 
train. 

We are quite as ignorant when, where, and with 
whom, agriculture and arboriculture originated, as we 
are as to who was the first hunter, fisher, or herdsman. 
Was it in some .sheltered valley, highly favored in soil 
and climate, and abounding in fruits that supply man's 
wants — that agricultural industry took its rise? That is 
not likely. 

It probably began under very difl^erent conditions. It 
is not in the midst of the plenty of Nature's providing, 
that man originated the attempt to produce, by art, a yet 
greater abundance. His whole history proves the con- 
trary. The improvidence of mankind, in the mass, is 
nowhere better exemplified than in their dealings with the 
soil, and with whatever spontaneously springs from the 
soil. In every country and age, one of the marked modes 
in which men have exercised their activity and industry, 
is the destruction of the forest wherever it has covered 



28 

the country. A living tree found no value in their eyes 
until it became a rarity. 

A striking example of this propensity to destruction is 
afforded by the conduct of the Portuguese navigators, sent 
out on voyages of discovery, early in the fifteentli cent- 
ury, by Prince Henry of Portugal. 

" Madeira (the Portuguese name for wood) was cov- 
ered with dense forests. This lovely and fertile island 
had, doubtless, a people and a name of its own ; but they 
have passed away, and the footsteps of the civilized dis- 
coverers have obliterated every trace of the aborigines. 
The first act of the adventurers was to set fire to the 
dense forests, which fed a conflagration which was not 
fairly extinguished for many years ; and when the virgin 
soil was fully exposed, colonization was successfully 
established."* 

So elsewhere, when the forest is laid low, men begin 
to lament its utter destruction ; and perhaps some feeble 
efforts are made, here and there, to restore it. Again, 
when men had made some progress in agriculture, they, 
in every age and country, cro|)ped their fields until they 
became too much impoverished to produce crops that 
paid for the labor bestowed on them. Then they felled 
the adjacent forest, or inclosed the prairie to sow new 
fields, to undergo the same process of utter exhaustion. 
It is not until there is no fresh soil fit for cultivation, 
that they make any attempt to recuperate the acres their 
own improvidence and want of skill have rendered utter- 
ly barren. 

Other examples of man's improvidence, for himself, 
and yet more, for his kind, are seen in the sweeping 
destruction of gkme ; as in the wholesale slaughter of the 

* Spry's Cruise of the Challenger, p. 20. 



29 

American bison (now rapidly disappearing), often killed 
only for their tongnes and their robes ; in the ntter exhaus- 
tion of some fisheries, as the salmon fisheries in British 
rivers and elsewhere, wherever they are free to all men. 
Such resources are gradually yet utterly lost to all, unless 
it be prohibited to kill game on another man's land, and 
to catch fish in another man's waters. 

For such reasons we think that agriculture did not 
originate in what afterward proved to be the most pro- 
ductive fields. It probably took its rise under very dif- 
ferent conditions. 

Perhaps some primitive savage, driven by the scarcity 
of game and of fruits, sought some convenient water- 
side in order to provide for his family by fishing. There 
he constructs a rude shelter for them, or improves some 
natural cave near at hand, as a more sheltered and safer 
refuge. He now maintains them by fishing. But in bet- 
ter times he was a man of the woods ; and retains a crav- 
ing after the forest and its productions. Sliould he 
observe, near his hut or cave, some tree of a kind that 
had often yielded him fruit, to satisfy his hunger, or to 
slake his thirst (perchance the cocoa-nut palm), it will re- 
call to him pleasing memories of the past. He will not 
hack it down with his flint hatchet, but will go further 
to seek his fuel. Should the tree bear abundantly in 
season, as fruit trees standing alone, not crowded by 
other trees, are ajDt to do, he will learn to value it and 
protect it from injury, even by his own family. He and 
his have become interested in the j) reservation of a tree. 
And this is the first step toward arboriculture, which, it 
is likely, preceded agriculture. 

Again : some projecting point on the bank of a river, of 
a bay, or an arm of the sea, may afford especial facilities 
3 



30 

for catching fish ; and thus, in time, attract a concourse of 
those engaged in that industry. The earlier settlers, 
needing some space for drying and curing their fish, for 
spreading out their .nets and fishing tackle, for keep- 
ing their fuel, and to give elbow-room to their families 
while at work, would inclose with stakes, and stockade, 
a space much beyond that covered by their huts. And 
each new-comer would hasten to follow their example. 
These fishing villages originated maritime towns and 
cities. 

Living chiefly on a monotonous diet of fish, these peo- 
ple would feel a craving for fruit and edible roots, and 
make excursions into the country around to get them ; 
some the produce of annual, others of perennial, plants. 
After the fruit had been eaten, the seeds and stones 
would be thown aside within the inclosure, already 
manured and enriched by the refuse of the fishery. In 
the spring many of these seeds would germinate, some of 
them in places and corners but of harm's way. 

In a fishing village little of vegetation would be seen. 
What sprung up would attract the eye. Some one, 
among these rude fishermen, more observant than the 
others, would recognize the young plants springing up 
from the seeds of the fruit he had eaten. He might 
charge his children not to harm them ; he might even 
take the trouble to pull up the weeds cramping their 
growth. 

Here is a rude experiment in horticulture, which will 
yield some fruit ; and more than that, it will germinate 
a priceless idea, the most prolific that ever entered the 
mind of man. This experiment will slowly grow into 
an art and an industry. In time this little inclosure will 
be enlarged into a garden. As the art of cultivation 



31 

makes progress, other persons, j)erliaps strangers coming 
to the village to procure lish, observing this primitive 
culture, will seek to imitate it. If they live where the 
land is unoccupied and the soil fertile, they will be led 
in time to expand their gardens into farms, adding acre 
to acre, fencing out wild animals and tame flocks, if any 
be yet near them ; they will add the culture of other 
plants to that of those with which the art began, thus 
gradually grafting a new creation on Nature's, by artifl- 
cially multiplying and improving on her products. For 
several kinds of corn-producing plants, and, we believe, 
some that bear fruits, have been so much changed and im- 
proved by cultivation, that botanists cannot now point out 
from what wild species they sprung. 

At length somebody invented the 23I0W, and yoked the 
ox to it. Then it only needed time, enterprise, and 
experience to expand this art and industry, from the 
primitive system of agriculture, into the means, in future 
generations, of feeding and multiplying mankind to num 
bers beyond the conception of their hunting, fishing, and 
pastoral forefathers. 

XIII. 

Man is not an amphibious animal. He is, indeed, one 
of the few animals, and the only one of the inaminalia^ 
which cannot swim. Their swimming is instinctive. 
With man it is an art. Man's natural aptitude for 
acquiring it varies greatly, chiefly, we believe, because the 
specific gravity of individuals varies much. 

But want early drove men to the water's edge, and into, 
and at length on, the water. They found in the vast 
body of water, fresh and salt, a liberal and often abun- 



dant supply for their most pressing needs. Indeed, not 

only the great waters, but in most countries, the borders 
of the sea, and of the water-courses, are the regions most 
abounding in animal life. 

Many primitive tribes seem to have derived their sub- 
sistence chiefly from the shell-fish they gathered. In 
many parts of the world are found mounds composed 
mostly of the shells of oysters, clams, and other inollusca, 
w]nch have been exposed to the action of fire. It must 
liave required many generations, nay, centuries of hungry 
savages, to gather them. 

On the coast of Denmark some of these mounds, of 
large area, but of little elevation, have been carefully 
explored, and revealed much as to the habits of pre-his- 
toric man. We have seen a soraewliat similar mound on 
the coast of South Carolina, twenty-four miles northeast 
of Charleston, close to a landing on one of a labyrinth 
of creeks, leading through a great salt marsh, into a 
large bay. The country-people around called this mound 
the "Old Indian Fort," it being a circular ring mound, 
inclosing a lower area. It is made up of the shells 
of oysters and clams, showing marks of fire. Had 
a tribe of savages, living solely on these shell-fish, 
habitually seated themselves around their fires, roasting 
the oysters and clams, and, after eating t]ie muscles, 
thrown aw^ay the shells from the assembled company 
with vigorous arm, they might, in the course of genera- 
tions or centuries, have piled up just such a circular 
mound as this. 

But primitive man M-as making some progress in the arts, 
which were to raise him above the necessity of living on 
shell- fish. One of them at length invented the barbed 
spear, or harpoon ; another the fish-hook, and the line ; 



then another, the net or the seine ; and, near the sea and 
great rivers, fish gradually became the chief diet. 

Some observant fisherman at length pei'ceived that to 
stand on the shore, or even knee-deep in the water, was 
not the best point for taking fisli. The larger number 
and the larger fish would keep in deep water, out of his 
reach', and, to the hungry savage, the larger the better 
the fish. 

Some uprooted tree, with the trunk stretched out and 
floating on the stream, afforded him a stand, from which 
the deeper water would be accessible to his hook and 
line. In his anxiety to increase his catchings, he at last 
hit upon the lucky thought that a few dry and buoyant 
logs, lashed together -with vines, would sustain his weight 
on the water ; and with a pole he might push it to tlie 
deep places where the fish were larger and more abun- 
dant. His slowly awakened ingenuity thus devised the 
fishing raft, which, in a generation or two, is improved 
into the cata?Jiaran / whicli is displaced in time by the 
more handy canoe. The fisherman is now on the way to 
become a mariner, and, after the lapse of some gener- 
ations or centuries, fleets for commerce and for war be- 
gin to furrow the surface of the sea. 



XIV 



Perhaps not one of these marvellous changes in man's 
habits and pursuits was the result of any great effort of 
invention. A number of casual observations of Nature, 
and of special contingencies around him ; some small 
efforts of ingenuity; some lucky accident revealing to him 
a new fact, a new material, or some jiliysical law before 



34 

unknown to him, led step by step to the invention and 
improvement of all the arts practised by mankind. 

It would be difficult to enumerate all the contrivances 
in common use which we owe to the imitation of Nature's 
mechanism alone. For example : the hinges on which 
our doors turn. They are a clever contrivance. Who 
invented it ? No man. 

A long time ago (the date is not recorded) an epicure 
was dining luxuriously on sea crabs. When he had sated 
himself with this rich food, being an observant man, he 
examined minutely the ingenious and effectual way in 
which the large claws of the crab were united at the 
articulating joint to the limb that supported them. His 
observation of these sockets led to the adoption of the 
principle of the hinge to man's use, with many modifi- 
cations. So man's first lesson in sewing was learned from 
the tailor-bird, which neatly sews the edges of leaves to- 
gether to conceal its nest. The net to take fish was 
copied from the spider's web to catch flies. The burrow- 
ing animals taught useful lessons in well-dio^o-ino^ and 
mining ; and the wonderful constructive instincts of the 
beaver afforded valuable suggestions in the art of dam- 
ming streams and building huts. 

So in pottery. I have taken from the surface of what 
had been a clay puddle, but now dried up by the sum- 
mer's sun, large pieces of fine clay of moderate and equa- 
ble thickness, smooth on the upper side, which curved 
up like the inner surface of a hollow sphere. All to whom 
I showed these pieces mistook them for fragments of un- 
baked pottery. Such pieces of clay, accidentally exposed 
to the action of fire, revealed the virtues of clay and the 
potter's art to primitive man. 

Again, flints and some other kinds of hard stone, skill- 



35 

fully fractured, furnished man with his first ed^e-tools. 
By accident, one had occasion to make a hot fire amon^ 
some fragments of metalliferous rocks. After the fire 
had gone out, on stirring the ashes looking for a live coal, 
he found, instead, some pieces of a bright, hard, smooth, 
shining substance, of a reddish color and of great weight, 
melted into various shapes. He had found copper, per- 
haps, as often liappens, amalgamated with tin. This is 
hroiize, an alloy, in its tool-making qualities inferior 
only to steel. He perceived that the fire had extracted 
it out of the rocks, and melted it into these various 
shapes ; and he slowly applies these lessons from Nature 
to useful ends of his own. 

For, in spite of his necessities, primitive man's nar- 
row range of ot^servation and experience make him a 
very slow inventor. We must not forget that invent- 
ing means, at first, finding out by accident or chance ; 
later, it may mean, by experiment. And that every step 
in the. improvement of an art lends itself to the promotion 
of other arts. 

Yet we know that this last remark has not proved of 
universal application to mankind. Men of every race 
have acquired the rudiments, at least, of several arts. Yet 
only a few of these races have succeeded in extending 
and improving the arts, so as to raise themselves to a 
state of civilization, or even semi-civilization. The depths 
of savagery is, perhaps, represented by tlie rude fishing 
tribes found by Nearchus, Alexander's admiral, on his 
voyage from the Indies to the Persian Gulf. These 
tribes eat their fish raw, not having yet learned the use 
of fire. We do not feel called upon, and will not at- 
tempt to explain the causes of these differences in races. 
Our inquiry refers to those races only which have proved 
themselves capable of civilization. 



36 

XV. 

In the most primitive condition of society, each family 
must not only have procured their own food, but made, 
with their own hands, all the arms, implements, utensils, 
and clothing they needed. This manufacture for the 
supply of all their wants may have continued long after 
the habits and occupations of different tribes had varied 
greatly, to suit the character of the different parts of the 
country in which each tribe chanced to settle. But this 
was not destined to continue. 

The inclination to barter seems to be an insfinct in man. 
If it be an instinct, it is one peculiar to man ; for no otlier 
animal exhibits it. Yet the first hunter may have bar- 
tered to the first iisher some of his ^ame for some of the 
other's fish. We cannot conceive of a state of society so 
rude and primitive that barter was unknown in it. 

Special circumstances must soon have induced some 
persons to devote themselves to special industries, with a 
view to barter their products for what they needed more. 
Grecian mythology tells us that lame Yulcan, unable to 
rival his active fellow gods in their enterprises, sports, 
and pastimes, turned smith ; and, shutting himself up in 
his workshop, employed himself in forging weapons 
and armor for Mars, thunder-bolts for Jupiter, and in the 
contrivance of other choice samples of his craft. He was 
the first artisan. So, perhaps, some hunter, disabled 
by permanent injuries from returning to the pursuit of 
the game on which he had hitherto lived, devoted his 
time to the making of -weapons and other implements, in 
exchange for which the hunter and the fisher would 
barter a part of their spoils. In short, prompted by 
some special aptitude, or urgent necessity, or facilitating 



37 

circumstances, individuals began, at very early dates, to 
give themselves to special industries as a means of earn- 
ing a living. 

Tlie disabled hunter of primitive times would, by 
practice and observation, acquire peculiar skill in making 
tli3 lance, the harpoon, the bow, and the arrow ; and all his 
tribe become eager to get weapons of his make. Or the 
making of pottery might become his art, and the work of 
his hands be in constant demand. 

Some parts of a country abound in materials and facil- 
ities for the production of one or more commodities, 
generally useful and much needed in other places not far 
remote. Take common salt, for instance, which abounds 
in some places, and is utterly wanting in others. Some 
persons would soon be induced to employ themselves in 
preparing salt ; and others, elsewhere, needing salt, will 
make some articles of general utility, the materials for 
which abound in their neighborhood, in order to barter 
them for salt. 

Here, then, are articles made for sale, which is manu- 
facturing; and articles exchanged for others, which is 
barter, or primitive trade. As this manufacture and ex- 
change of commodities increases, there springs up a class 
of parsons who make a business of procuring from the 
producers some of their goods, and carrying them to the 
places where they are most wanted, to barter or sell them 
there for more than they gave for them. 

Soon some convenient and portable commodity comes 
into use as a measure of value. In time this becomes 
silver or gold, as most convenient. As almost every part 
of the country, indeed of the world, has some peculiar ad- 
vantages for producing some commodity wanted else- 
where, commerce extends its operations, remote regions 
3* 



38 

come into intercourse with each other, new con- 
veniences, comforts, and arts are widely disseminated ; 
and by greater intercourse of man with men, knowledge 
of all kinds is increased. 

As men multiply on the face of the earth, new wants 
are generated, new arts are invented, and knowledge in- 
creases ; a greater variety of employments become opened 
to men. The advantages and necessity of the division of 
labor become fully understood, and more practised con- 
tinually. To the original occupations of men, first hunt- 
ing and fishing, then pastoral life, then farming, are 
now added various occupations in the different branches 
of manufacture, commerce, and employments that call for 
professional and scientific skill ; and also more yet in 
manual arts, and more still in unskilled labor. In each 
. of these, many men seek to provide for themselves and 
their families, by selling their productions, or their serv- 
ices. 

Thus society becomes a very complex body. A great 
variety of rights, relations, interests, and obligations are 
now generated, and spring up among the members of 
the community ; and a more comprehensive and comj)lex 
system of laws becomes needed to protect their rights, and 
to adjust the relations of individuals with each other. The 
law finds full employment, not in creating rights, but in 
protecting rights which have naturally grown into ex- 
istence. . 

XYI. 

We find proofs of the existence of manufacturing in- 
dustiy on a large scale ; and indications of extended com- 
mercial intercourse at a date when prehistoric man had 



39 

not yet discovered the nature and the use of any one of the 
metals. Geologists and archaeologists, searching for traces 
of primitive man, have found in the middle of France, near 
Tours, and elsewhere, evidence of the existence and long 
continued manufacture of flint-tools and weapons : hatch- 
ets, knives, chisels, saws, lance-heads, arrow points, etc. 
The accumulation of those implements, near the surface 
of the earth, over a large area, in the neighborhood of 
Tours, was immense. Over 20,000 specimens were dug 
up in a few weeks. True, nearly all of these were broken, 
or defective. The explanation of this latter fact proves 
the immensity of the manufacture. The articles success- 
fully finished had been disseminated over a wide region 
of country in extended and long continued traflic. 
Archseologists think that they have traced tools from this 
factory as far as Belgium. Those left behind in such 
numbers are only the failures in the process of manu- 
facture.* 

Tills and other examples show us how early men had 
recourse to the division of labor, some giving their whole 
time to making articles for sale or barter, others trans- 
porting these articles to remote points for the purpose of 
trade. And so it was in other occupations. Among the 
growing multitudes of men most persons had soon, each, 
to adopt some special form of industry to earn his living. 



XYII. 

"We have been at pains to trace some of the steps 
men must have taken in their progress toward civ- 
ilization. Men are born into society. It is through his 

* L'Homme Primitive, par Louis Figuier, pp. 171 et 94o-6. 



40 

domestic and social instincts that he is enabled to im- 
prove his condition. Yet all human progress and im- 
provement spring from the efforts of individuals, and in 
most cases, of those especially gifted by nature. And, 
through social intercourse, this progress and improvement 
is communicated to others less gifted than themselves. 

Numerous have been the successive steps, with long 
intervals between them, by which even the most gifted 
races of men have risen from primitive barbarism to the 
highest civilization yet reached. And every one of these 
steps has been prompted by the enterprise, ingenuity, and 
industry of some individual. 

The invention of each weapon, used by the most primi- 
tive hunting tribe, they owe to some one man ; the con- 
trivance of the fish-hook, the net, and of every device 
for catching fish, each has a similar origin. Some par- 
ticular man first domesticated the dog, and drew atten- 
tion to those instincts and traits which render him an in- 
valuable and incorruptible servant and ally to his master. 
Some other man first tamed one or other of those ruminat- 
ing animals so peculiarly adapted to man's uses — the sheep, 
the goat, the cow, the camel, and others — thus prepar- 
ing the way, amidst the growing scarcity of game*, thinned 
by constant slaughter, for the first great change in man's 
pursuits ; turning the scattered and starving tribes of 
hunters into more thriving and more united bands of 
shepherds and herdsmen. It was the observation and 
thoughtful foresight of an individual which first taught 
men to preserve the tree for its fruit, and to protect the 
germinating seed for the sake of the harvest it prom- 
ised. Thus leading their fellow men, step by step, 
toward arboriculture, horticulture, and so to agriculture, 
wliich is the foundation of civilization. The necessities 



41 

and practised skill of another man originated the occupa- 
tion of manufacturino; what others wanted, to be ex- 
changed for wliat those others had in an abundance be- 
yond their needs. From such lirst progressive stejDS 
sprung all the different pursuits of men, in all the various 
branches of special skill and knowledge useful to their 
possessors and to their fellow men. These pursuits have 
now become almost numberless, but there is not one of 
tliem which we do not owe to the inventive facul- 
ties, enterprise, and industry of some particular person, 
and its improvements to others who have given special at- 
tention to it. 

And yet it is to their social intercourse with each other 
that mankind, in the aggregate, owe their progress and 
improvement in their condition. The most gifted indi- 
vidual can make but a step or two onward by his own re- 
sources. 

In this sketch of man's progress we can trace Nature's 
providence for men. (In this inquiry, in this agnostic 
age, we must not speak of God's providence.) Unlike 
tlie brute creation, content under the guidance of their 
instincts, man has been constituted with a constant crav- 
ing to better his condition. But, then, Nature has en- 
dowed him with faculties which enable him gradually to 
raise himself above his primitive state. 

By the further wise providence of benignant Nature, 
each step that an individual takes toward rendering the 
gifts of Nature more available to his own use ; each in- 
vention or improvement in an art, or in the attainment of 
a special skill, or of knowledge hitherto hidden, while it 
may serve his purpose in profiting himself, sooner or 
later becomes known to his neighbors, and in time its 
beneficial results are accessible to all. 



49 

Indeed, it often happens that inventions, devised with 
a view to profit, prove more profitable to others than to 
the inventor himself, his gains not repaying him for the 
time, pains, and cost he had bestowed on his object. In- 
deed, the mere worldly lucre accruing from genius, 
science, wisdom, and learning, to the highly-gifted posses- 
sors of these endowments and acquisitions, are as nothing 
when compared with the benefits derived from them by 
the multitudes who had no part in originating them. 

But mere profit, immediate, direct lucre, is not the 
chief motive which impels the most highly gifted of 
men to the exercise of their special gifts. And it is well 
that it should be so. Before Yirgil's day and since, the 
poet, the artist, and the inventor, each have had occasion 
to sing, in Virgil's strain — 

Hon ego versicuJos feci, tidii alter honores, 
Sic vos non vobis nidijieafis aves. 
Sic vos non voh'is vellera fertis ores, 
Sic vos non vobis meUificatis apes, 
Sic vos non voM^ fertis aratra hoves 

It is in the enthusiastic exercise of its powers that genius 
must find its chief reward. Little of the profit which 
ultimately accrues from its productions returns to re- 
ward the teeming brain and skillful hand from which it 
sprung. 

In short, all the progress and improvement in the con- 
dition of mankind have been built up out of the contri- 
butions of individuals. To the domestic and social in- 
stincts of men, which disseminate these acquisitions, 
civilization is due. We labor to establish this, in order 
to counteract the error common among even educated 
people, that government, or the State, as a creative in- 



43 

stitution, does, or can do, anything directly to improve 
the coiiditionof men, and to promote civihzation, beyond 
providing for the security of tlie rights of individuals. 

XYIII. 

Man's domestic and social instincts bring him into 
contact with society, not with the State, or with the 
government. These latter should be carefully dis- 
tinguished from society ; but they are often confounded 
with it, although they originate from different, and even 
opposite, sources. 

By society, taken in its broadest sense, we mean to in- 
clude all the human beings within some given area, hav- 
ing domestic or social relations, or intercourse and trans- 
actions with some of the others, so that eacii one may be 
directly or even indirectly affected and influenced, for 
good or evil, by the conduct or pursuits of the otliers. 
The sources of the relations which originate society, are 
the domestic and social instincts exclusively. 

On the other hand, the State is merely the aggregation 
of the streuijth and resources of all these individuals into 
a unit, for the protection of the rights of each one of 
them. The State originates, not from the social instincts 
of men, but solely from their selfish instincts — each one 
seeking his own safety and the security of his individual 
rights, through the protection hoped for through the 
State. The government is merely the agency organized 
by the State, for the fulfillment of the duty of protecting 
private rights, and for the management of the resources 
the community has intrusted to it. 

All that society, organized into the State, can do to 
promote the welfare of individuals and of the eonimu- 



44 

uitj at large, is to fulfill the primitive purpose of its or- 
ganization — the negative duty of securing to each mem- 
ber of the community the undisturbed enjoyment of his 
personal and social rights, and of the results of his in- 
dustry, skill, and economy, by enforcing justice at home, 
and repelling violence from abroad. 

These two negative duties, of preventing evils, must 
be carefully distinguished from the bestowing of direct 
and positive benefits on the people of the community. 
For the administration of justice at home, and the re- 
pelling violence from abroad, are exactly the only two 
things individuals and unorganized society cannot do for 
themselves. 

A general experience and consciousness of the danger 
to the private rights of each one, lead all men, by self- 
seekino- instinct, to look for security to a combination 
and organization of the strength and resources of all in 
the community, for the protection of the rights of each 
one ; and the community thus becomes a State —a change 
which by no means implies a community of goods or of 
rights. The State is a unit only for the protection of 
private rights. 

Even those who may have taken no part in this meas- 
ure of combination, when they have suffered wrong, and 
are unable to right themselves, see the need of this com- 
bination ; and readily have recourse to the authorities 
representing the community, whether it be the patriarchal 
chief of a clan, or the chiefs of a tribe in council, or the 
assembled people, or a parliament, or a sovereign prince, 
or the courts which may have been established for the 
administration of justice. 

Wherever men are found in numbers, there will be 
social relations, and a society, and possibly all the blessings 



45 

society can bestow. But if there were no wrong- doers in 
that society, there would be no need of an agency to ad- 
minister justice. If there were no foreign enemy to en- 
danger society or its members, there need be no State 
organization to resist tlieir attacks. 

Everything else that need be done in human society, 
can be, and has been, better done by individuals, or, in 
many cases, by voluntary combinations of them, than by 
any government whatever. "VVe shall find occasion to 
point out how generally, ahnost universally, govern- 
ments have failed to attain to satisfactory results, when- 
ever they have left the plain path leading to their two 
great primary duties — administering justice at home, and 
resisting violence from abroad — to take upon themselves 
works of supererogation, under the guise of active benefi- 
cence to those they govern. 



XIX. 

We have referred to personal and social rights. Let 
us inquire what is meant by the rights of an individual. 

Men being endowed by nature with certain powers and 
capacities, it is often said that their first right is that of 
using their powers to promote their own well-being, in 
any way not hurtful to their fellows. 

But the truth is, that men, coming into life as infants, 
live long years under the control of others, and may 
come under many binding obligations before they fully 
attain to the maturity of the powers nature has endowed 
them with. Often many circumstances may justly con- 
tinue to trammel their perfect freedom in the use of 
those powers exclusively for their own advancement. 



46 

But even where a man has the freest use of his natural 
endowments, they are at best only the roots from which 
human riglits may spring up and branch out in many 
directions. They are capacities rather tlian matured 
rights. For the great mass of men's rights spring from 
the use they make of their capacities. IsTature, while en- 
dowing men with certain powers, has burdened them 
with certain wants and appetites. The possession of 
these powers, stimulated by these appetites, does not 
give him a right to satisfy his wants, nnder all circum- 
stances, like a beast of prey. 

Even if we should say that the tiger's powers and ap- 
petites give him a right to seize upon the prey, man or 
beast, that comes within liis reach ; who will assert that a 
man's hunger entitles him to take the food already earned 
and appropriated by another? or that his shivering in the 
wintry blast gives him a right to wrap himself up in 
anotlier's cloak or furs ? or that In's unsheltered condition 
justifies his forcing his way into another's house ? 

ISTature has made provision, in the sympathies of man- 
kind, for cases of accidental and unavoidable destitution. 
But if cases of want gave rights, charity and hospitality 
would lose their nature and merit. They would cease to 
be what they are. Just think of a man having a ground 
of action at law against another, a stranger to him, for 
allowing him to remain without food or clothes ! Or 
think of indicting a man for such neglect of another, a 
stranger to him, as a crime ! 

XX. 

Even in very rude and primitive states of society, men 
learn that their wants are not the measure of their rights. 



47 

Little troubled as ineu commonly are with scruples, we 
sometimes meet with scruples, and even with a point of 
honor, where we little expect it. 

In the far Nortliwest of North America, where the 
improvident aboriginal population aro. dependent for 
their food solely on their success in hunting, when it hap- 
pens, in winter, that they have killed more buffalo or 
other game than they can consume at once, or carry to 
their lodges, it is usual to select some suitable spot near 
at hand, and make what the French half-breeds call a 
cache. Although the term implies concealment, the ca(?A.3 
is not hidden, being on the surface of the ground, now 
frozen as hard as rock. The frozen meat is inclosed 
and buried under a substantial pen of heavy logs, to 
protect it from carnivorous beasts, as the wolf and fox. 
There it remains safe and sound while the frost lasts, a 
provident store against a period of ill success in hunt- 
ing. 

It is a point of honor, with these simple people, to 
respect as saci'ed these stores, laid up by their brother 
hunters. If they themselves become destitute, they must 
seek out some neighboring lodge, perhaps a day's jour- 
ney off, and rely on the hospitality that awaits them 
there ; and which, in the like case, they feel bound to 
offer without stint. 

In the narrative of the " Northwest Passage by Land " 
to the Pacific, by Viscount Milton and Dr. Cheadle, in 
1865, we find some very striking instances of the cus- 
toms and of the heroic abstinence and honesty of these 
rude hunters. After mentioning the success of their 
own party in hunting the buffalo on a particular occa- 
sion, the authors say : 

" There was now more meat than we required at pres- 



48 

ent, and the cache was therefore left undisturbed, some 
given in charge to Gaytchi Mohkaman (an Indian 
hunter)." Page 149. 

Sorae weeks after this they mention that " Two 
young Indians, who had just arrived from the plains, 
brought a message from Gaytchi MoKkaman to the 
effect that he would be compelled to eat the meat we had 
left in cache if we did not fetch it away immediately." 
Page 158. 

" At Jack Fish Lake we met Gaytchi Mohkaman and 
some Wood Crees of our acquaintance. The former 
apologized for eating our meat in the winter, urging the 
dire necessity which compelled him." Page 167. 

In a previous part of the narative it is mentioned : 

" As Cheadle sat over the fire in the evenino- alone, in 
a somewhat dismal mood, the door was opened, and in 
walked a French half-breed, of very Indian appearance. 
He sat down and smoked, talked for an hour or two, 
stating that he w^as out trapping, and that his lodge and 
family were about five miles distant. Cheadle produced 
some pemmican for supper, when the visitor fully justi- 
fied the sobriquet which he bore, Mayhaygan, or ' the 
wolf,' by eating most voraciously. He then mentioned 
that he had not tasted food for two days. He had visited 
our hut the day before, lit a fire, melted some water in 
the kettle, and waited some time in the hope that some 
one might come in. At last he went away without 
touching the pemmican, which lay on the table ready to 
his hand. This story was doubtless perfectly true, 
agreeing with all the signs previously observed, and the 
fact that the pemmican was uncut. 

" With the pangs of hunger gnawing at his stomach, 
and viewing, no doubt, with longing eyes the food around, 



49 

he had yet, according to Indian etiquette, refrained from 
clamoring at once for food, but sat and smoked for a 
long time without making the slightest allusion to his 
starving condition. When in due course he had offered 
iiim something to eat, he mentioned the wants of himself 
and his family. The next day he left, carrying with 
him supplies for his squaw. He was exceedingly grate- 
ful for the assistance, and promised to return in a day 
with his wife, who should wash and mend all bur 
clothes as some acknowledgment of the kindness." Pages 
134-5. 

Some pages further on the authors mention the relief 
they affoided to a small tribe of Indians, reduced by 
the scarcity of game to the verge of famine : ^ 

" During the day family after family came in, a spectral 
cavalcade, the men gaunt and wan, mai-ching before 
skeleton dogs, almost literally skin and bone, dragging 
painfully along sleighs as attenuated and empty of pro- 
visions as themselves. The women and children brought 
up the rear, who — to the credit of the men be it recorded 
— were in far better case, indeed, tolerably plump, and 
contrasted strangely with the fleshless forms of the other 
sex. Although the Indian squaws and children are kept 
in subjection, and the work falls chiefly on them, it is an 
error to suppose that they are ill treated, or that the 
women labor harder or endure greater hardships than 
the men. The Indian is constantly engaged in hunting, 
to supply his family with food ; and when that is scarce 
he will set out without any provision for himself, and 
often travel from morning to night, for days, before he 
flnds the game he seeks. Then, loaded with meat, he 
tuils home again ; and while the plenty lasts considers 
himself entitled to complete rest after his exertions. 



50 

The self-denial of these men, and their wonderful en- 
durance of hunger, was illustrated in the case of our 
hunter, Keenomontiagoo^'' etc. Pages 145-6. 

"As this miserable company came, they were invited 
to sit down by the fire. Their cheerfulness belied their 
looks, and they smoked and chatted gayly without ap]3ear- 
ing to covet the meat that lay around, or making any 
request for food at once. ISTo time was lost in cooking 
some meat and offering a good meal to all, which they 
ate with quietness and dignity, too well-bred to show any 
sign of greediness. Although they proved equal to the 
consumption of any quantity that was put before them." 
Page 147. 

XXI. 

The great mass of rights available for the promotion of 
man's well-being are derived from the right use of his 
natural endowments. By enterprise and industry he 
may j)rovide for his own wants. By practice and ingenuity 
he may increase his earnings and acquire a degree of 
skill by which his services rise in value. By providence 
and economy he may accumulate in some durable shape 
a part of the result of his labors. By forming domestic 
and social ties, he may at once acquire new rights and 
assume new obligations. Every new relation he holds 
may extend his interests and his influence, not only as 
husband, parent, kinsman, neighbor, but as one skilled in 
some important art or jDrofession ; or as standing in some 
special relation to others, as proprietor, employer, agent, 
creditor, or debtor. All these relations bring with them 
rights and duties of more or less importance. 

As the number and variety of men's occupations and 



51 

pursuits multiply, the complexity of their rights and 
duties increase. Tlie existence and nature of many 
private rights are obvious enough; and others not so 
obvious, become clear to the mind on considering the 
relations of the parties concerned. But many, perhaps 
most men, being slack in observing and respecting the 
rights of others, all men but outlaws see the need of 
organizing a powerful agency for the defense of private 
rights, by punishing trespasses against them. And this 
duty imposed upon society, organized into the State, 
becomes in time exceeding complicated and laborious. 



XXII. 

One necessary result of society, that is of the close and 
habitual intercourse of numbers, is to exhibit the great 
contrasts between the conditions of individuals. Indeed 
civilization tends indirectly to aggravate that contrast. 
For many have no peculiar ability to avail themselves of 
the advantages which society and civilization bring within 
their reach ; while some others make the most of these 
opportunities. And although the tendency of civiliza- 
tion is to raise the condition of the whole mass of the 
people, it does so very unequally. Kowhere is there a 
closer a^^proximation to personal equality than amidst 
absolute savagery. Yet, savage tribes have often died 
out from long-continued destitution, such as seldom occurs 
in civilized communities. 

It would seem that, in order to attain her ends, what- 
ever they may be, Nature works by inequalities. Perfect 
equality is nowhere found in her productions. Of the 
multitude of leaves on the same tree, no two are exactly 



52 

alike. This is not only true of Nature's productions, but 
it is equally true of their destinies. Of the thousands of 
acorns that fall annually in the forest, one may become a 
mighty oak. The rest are crunched and swallowed by 
the swine. Of the thousands of eggs spawned by the 
salmon on her annual trip up the river, all but one may 
be devoured in early youth by other fish ; and the one, 
after escaping numberless similar perils, may attain a size 
and maturity far surpassing its mother's. So man, another 
of Nature's productions, runs many hazards : many die in 
infancy, a portion in immature youth, others prove utter 
failures later in life ; many succeed in a measure, a few 
stumble upon great success in life. ■ This is a wise saying 
wherever it comes from : " I returned and saw under the 
sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the 
strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to 
men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill ; but 
time and chance happeneth to them all." 

It must be obvious to every one, that the natural 
powers, capacities, and characteristics of men vary greatly, 
almost without limit ; and their fortunes quite as much ; 
without our being able to account for these variations. 
Yet we see, notwithstanding, that in the midst of these 
fortuitous contingencies, the condition to whicli men 
attain still de23ends chiefly on the use each one makes of 
his, natural endowments. Nature gives, to some, jDowers 
and capacities both of mind and body, far superior to 
what the average run of men receive. The result is 
great inequalities in talents, skill, knowledge, and acquisi- 
tions among those who make up human communities. 
Nature having command of boundless variety, tolerates 
similarity, but seems to abhor equality. 

Yet she has provided laws controlling the final result 



53 

of human activity, through which the success of the more 
successful redounds to the benefit and advancement of 
those who are less so. Thus the enterprises of the more 
able lead them to need the aid, and engage the services of 
those who are less able than themselves. Moreover, she 
has endowed men, or many of them, with a strong pro- 
pensity to communicate knowledge and skill, and to 
bestow the necessaries of life on the ignorant, the unskill- 
ful, and the destitute. The more gifted at least of the 
human races have been so constituted, that their exertions 
tend to the amelioration of the condition of their own race. 

The comparative well-being of individuals differs 
widely even in the most primitive society ; and the con- 
trast in this respect between individuals, and also families, 
becomes more marked with each step of progress from 
that primitive state. 

Some pious people who look beyond this life, think 
that this tendency in Nature to favor inequalities is only 
a reflection from the world above. That inequalities 
here are only the shadows which characterize the con- 
ditions of those who have passed away to another state of 
existence. Not that inequalities there are the result of 
the same causes as here. For looking on this life as a 
state of probation merely, they think that the means of 
man's success here, may cause his ruin there. 

XXIII. 

Perfectly natural causes combine to produce the result 
of inequality in society. One great cause is this : With 
the increase of skill, knowledge, and foresight in their 
pursuits, some men, not always otherwise the most highly 
gifted, acquire the art of accumulating much of the 

4 



54 



results of their industry, or tlieir success, in sueli per- 
manent forms that it becomes wealth ; not the plenty of 
a day, a week, or a month, bnt an abundance that can be 
kept for an indefinite time for employment in future 
use — that is wealth or property. 

Wealth may have been acquired even before the 
domestication of animals ; but the earliest form known to 
us that wealth assumed was that possessed by Job and 
Abraham — large herds of various cattle. The skillful, 
vigilant, and industrious herdsman became rich, while 
the unskillful and negligent herdsman continued or became 
poor, and perhaps was at length compelled by want to 
seek service with his prosjDerous neighbor, Nor could he 
justly complain of his own poverty, or envy the other's 
wealth. 

In more advanced times wealth assumed more per- 
manent shapes than that of the flocks and herds, which 
so suddenly failed patient Job — the shape of improved 
and cultivated lands, useful and costly buildings, and other 
durable results of labor, foresight, and economy. 

We have already named the two great motives that 
prompt men to industry and providence : the desire to 
better their own condition, and the instinctive anxiety to 
provide well for their offspring : to advance them per- 
manently to a better condition than they themselves had 
formerly occupied, and in which, perhaps, they had 
suffered many privations. We believe that this last 
instinct has been, both directly and indirectly, the chief 
agent in raising men above barbarism, and has built up 
civilization. 

This trait of character, providence for our offspring, is 
most strongly marked among the higher races of men, 
and especially in the best specimens among them. In 



55 

fact, if all races spring from one source, as to parentage, 
this trait probably originated the higher races which we 
see predominating in the world. It is characteristic of 
these races, not to be absorbed in the j)resent, but to feel 
much interest and to give much thought to the past and 
future ; this interest being most commonly exhibited in 
inquiries into the history of their forefathers, and in 
anticipations as to tlie prospects of their descendants. 
Looking back and looking forward in time is character- 
istic of the higher and more gifted races of men. 

Much as tliey cling to their hardly earned acquisitions, 
many of them readily part with no small portion of their 
gains, to enable their children to start in life from a 
higher intellectual level, and to fit them for a higher 
social })08ition than they themselves ever reached. 

This introduces a second cause of social inequality. 
For these provident parents are, as a class, intellectually 
and morally, superior to and more energetic than the aver- 
age man ; and, in spite of the many startling exceptions 
to the truth of the maxim that " Like begets like," that 
maxim has a broad foundation in truth, not only as to 
physical but as to mental and moral qualities. And in 
this case the general result is, that the difference in the 
conditions of the various classes of men is widened, not 
merely by the success and advancement of some capable 
men of one generation ; but, in many cases, by the success 
and advancement of several generations of capable men, 
each generation successively starting from the vantage- 
ground of wealth, inherited culture, social position, and 
family influence, to which it has been raised by its pred- 
ecessors. The truth is that, in more than one sense, 
inheritance lies at, and is the foundation on which civil- 
ization has been built up. 



56 

Nothing has tended more strongly to raise the general 
condition of men in intelligence, morals, manners, and 
general well-being, than the existence of classes, raised 
above the necessity of daily toil, or engrossing care to 
supply their pressing wants, having leisure and means, 
and many of them a craving for higher occupations. 

With intellectual races, idleness, if not the mother, 
often proves the grandmother of mental progress. Leis- 
ure affords the opportunity of acquiring a higher educa- 
tion, and has been the chief agent in extending knowl- 
edge and skill, and in the cultivation of art, science, 
letters, and philosophy. 

Society never rose above barbarism where there were no 
men of leisure and means. Wealth and culture pos- 
sessed by individuals have originated and sustained most 
of the enterprises beneficial to mankind. For, of neces- 
sity, the benefits of these acquisitions by and to individ- 
uals for themselves, by a law of Nature's providing, 
gradually extend themselves throughout society. It is 
this. provident law that creates the only " Socialism " that 
N^ature tolerates. 

XXIV. 

The two instincts to which we lately referred have 
been at work ever since men have existed. Man's crav- 
ing to better his own condition, and, yet more effectually, 
his desire to provide for his offspring, and to advance them 
to as good and even to a better condition than he himself 
had experienced. These constitute that double founda- 
tion on which civilization and all human progress have 
been built. Like exogenous plants, human nature has 
two prolific shoots, two vigorous instincts from which 



57 

have shot up human society and institutions in the best 
forms in which we have yet seen them. In fact, there 
are no other sources from which they could have origi- 
nated and continued to thrive. 

And although the first of these instincts is but a narrow 
selfishness, and the second a widening selfishness, which 
embraces, not merely ourself, but that which springs 
from us, as the branch from the tree and the leaf from 
the twig. Nature has provided that that very selfishness, 
especially in the latter form, should result in widely ex- 
panding benefits to mankind. For she has further created 
the necessity that men should obey the social instincts 
that lead to the formation of society ; and, morever, has 
made it impossible for men in society permanently to 
keep their acquisitions in skill and knowledge, and the 
results from them, exclusively to themselves. 

We may observe of the latter instinct, that man natu- 
rally craves an heir to his acquisitions of every kind. 
Moreover, we often see those who have lost their chil- 
dren, or never had any, as devoted to nephews and nieces, 
or to grandchildren, as if they were their own immediate 
offspring. So strong is this craving to occupy the 
.parental relation, that many childless people adopt the 
children of strangers, and not seldom very foolishly, 
without regard to the parentage of the adopted ; forget- 
ting that traits of character are very often inherited, and 
that estimable people will seldom part with a child, how- 
ever many they may have. 

What is termed " bad blood " expresses in two words 
a long-observed truth. Yet we have more than once 
known very reputable, and, apparently, not otherwise 
foolish people, adopt the child of a notoriously unprinci- 
pled and profligate parent, chiefly because the child was 



58 

attractive in person and ways, and the parent ready to 
make a formal transfer of liis or her right in it. 

These adopters in the end have, not seldom, reason to 
be thankful that they can say truly, what Shakespeare's 
Leonato regrets he cannot say, when he discovers the sup- 
posed abandoned character of his daughter Hero : 

" Why had I not, with charitable hand, 
Took up a beggar's issue at my gates, 
Who, smirched thus, audmir'd with infamy, 
I might have said, 'No part of tbis is mine, 
This shame derives itself from unknown loins.' " 

In such cases of iU-considered and unwise adoption as 
we have referred to, the adoption is often concealed 
from the child, and also from the associates of the adopt- 
ing parties. A very unfair thing to them. The child is 
given, to recommend it later in life, all the sanctions of 
the good character and position of its supposed j)arents. 
Let us imagine that Leonato had adopted some vicious 
beggar's brat, and that Hero had been justly charged 
with her dissoluteness. To what a fate had Count 
Claudio been betrayed by Leonato's imposition ! For, in 
truth, we have usually made a long step toward know- 
ing a person's true character, when those of his or her 
father and mother are known to us. 

To our mind, the instinct which Nature has stamped 
on us (so strongly on some, so weakly on others) to task 
ourselves through life for the benefit of our offspring, 
proves a great deal. Not only the right of inheritance 
in the offspring, but the right of the parent to choose his 
heir, at least, from among them. Moreover, this dispo- 
sition to adopt children by childless people seems to be 
an instinct peculiar to the human family, although do- 



59 

mesticated animals can be trained to adopt offspring not 
their own. From this provision of Kature as to adop- 
tion, which amounts to a craving with some childless 
people, we are disposed to infer that the right to bequeath 
property, especially with childless people, is strongly 
founded in nature. 

We greatly err, if the French law as to inheritance of 
land does not outrage the right of the landholder. Ko 
matter how he may have acquired his land, or how he 
may wish to dispose of it, on his death the law steps in, 
and divides his acres equally among his children. 

This provision originated in a political policy, at a 
critical time. After the revolution of 1789 large estates, 
covering half of France, were confiscated and divided. 
In framing the " Code ]N^apoleon " it was thought that 
the more the land was cut up among landholders the 
more difiicult it would be to bring about a counter-revo- 
lution, and to restore the old proprietors and the old 
Government. This policy is still in high favor with the 
Government and people, from the conviction that where 
there are no large proprietors a class is got rid of who in- 
fluence the people, and might oppose the Government. 
The policy and legal tendency is now to cut up France 
into potato patches and cabbage gardens. ]^o proprietor 
shall influence the vote of universal manhood suffrage. 

We believe that as long as the French hold on to their 
present law of inheritance of land and tlieir universal 
suffrage, they will have out two heavy anchors mooring 
them to an unstable and unprosperous political condition, 
with a perpetually recurring revolutionary ferment and 
agitation. 



60 



XXY. 



Ok what solid foundation can we build up the right of 
private property in an individual, to the exclusion of all 
other persons ? 

Each person, who is not idiotic or imbecile, has been 
endowed by I^ature with some share of physical, intel- 
lectual, and spiritual energy, which is to serve his pur- 
poses during his natural life. We may assume, since 
ITature has given these energies to him, that they are 
his, and belong to no one else. The amount of these 
energies not only varies greatly in different persons, but 
they may be wasted, misused, or perish for want of use. 
We can do notliing through life without expending some 
portion of them ; and we sometimes expend them prema- 
turely. In the expenditure of them our moral responsi- 
bility chiefly lies. By judicious use and husbanding of 
them, they usually last as long as we last, and expand 
beyond our first estimate of them. They are the impor- 
tant part of ourselves. 

Whenever a man has expended a part of these ener- 
gies, either physical, intellectual, or spiritual (usually he 
expends them simultaneously), in adapting to his own 
use some part of the crude basis which Nature furnishes 
for us to work on, whether the basis be material or im- 
material —that is, ideal ; whether it be matter, or the laws 
governing matter, or the faculties of the mind ; if another 
deprive him of the results of his labor and ingenuity, he 
is robbed of a part of himself, which he put in his work. 

This is equally true, whether the result of his labor 
take a material, or a purely immaterial and ideal shape : 
whether, on the one hand, he build a house or a ship, or 



61 

inclose, clear, drain, and cultivate a farm ; or, on the 
other hand, whether he make some new and useful inven- 
tion in mechanics, science, or art ; or compose a poem, 
a book, or a picture, wliich gains popular favor — so that 
other men derive pleasure or instruction from it ; and 
are willing to pay something rather than not enjoy the use 
of it. In each of these cases he is equally entitled to the 
benefit that may be derived from the result of the labor 
and talent he has expended on it. 

But where the result of his labor is inseparately joined 
to a material form, as the house, the ship, or the farm, 
it is much easier to secure to him the benefit from his 
proj)erty, on which he has expended, perhaps, a large 
portion of his energies — that is, of himself — than in the 
case in which he has expended them on the production of 
an ingenious invention, or on a pojDular poem, or book, 
that might be a source of profit to him. Ideas are im- 
material ; and however much labor and time may have 
been expended on them, any one that has access to them 
may copy, and carry them off. But in either case, 
whether the product be material or ideal, the producer 
has the same right to demand from the community which 
professes to protect his rights, all reasonable vigilance and 
diligence in the protection of those rights, the results of 
his labor, whatever may be their nature. For they can 
be identified as his, and no other man's. 

Who will deny the obligation on the Government under 
which a man lives, to defend his material property from 
robbery, and his character from defamation ? 

Is it less bound, or is it difiicult or impossible, to pro- 
tect his immaterial acquisitions, when made accessible to 
others ? In the case of purely inrellectual property, all 
that should be required of the producer, is that he should 



62 

furnish proof that it is his own, and that he intends to 
retain his property in it, and not give it away to the 
public. 

It is this vast but gradual accumulation of acquisitions 
of all kinds of property, material, and, yet more, intellect- 
ual, through past ages slowly disseminated throughout 
civilized countries, which has raised these countries to 
what they are. 

All that governments can do to promote the develop- 
ment of human caj)acity, is to protect individuals in the 
free exercise of their powers, and secure to them the en- 
joyment of their acquisitions. But the best governments 
that have yet existed, by intermeddling with matters 
foreign to their duties, and by neglecting duties truly in- 
cumbent on them, have often marred and defeated the 
provisions IN^atiire has made to enable men to elevates them- 
selves, and indirectly, but surely, their fellow men. 

As to property in land, we need only say — every 
country, in which land has not been appropriated to the 
exclusive use of individuals, has continued in a state of 
barbarism. This barbarism has been the most absolute 
where proprietorship by private persons was least known. 
It diminished under village proprietorship, and even un- 
der nomadic pastoral life — when local right of pasture is 
claimed, and acknowledged, as with the Mesta in Spain, 
But it never disappears, except where the title of indi- 
viduals to the exclusive use of most of the soil is fully es- 
tablished, and recognized by the law. 

In every populous country the law has rigidly pro- 
tected private rights of property in land. Without this 
rigid protection of private property in land, no country 
ever became densely peopled. Thence we infer that 
without this rigid protection of private property in land, 



68 

the bulk of mankind would never have come into exist- 
ence, to complain of being robbed of their share of Nat- 
ure's bounties. 

To whatever pursuits men devote their talents, industry, 
and enterprise — whether to fanning, or mining, or manu- 
factures, or commerce, or navigation, or professions such 
as law, medicine, or civil engineering, etc. — the ultimate 
shape which they naturally seek to give to the results of 
their success, as a provision for themselves, and for their 
families after them, is property. And where their suc- 
cess has been great, it usually takes the form of landed 
property. 

This is a wise, although worldly prudence, without any 
taint of criminality about it, unless we can trace that in 
tlie means and the arts they used to acquire wealth. Even 
in those cases in which we are disgusted at a selfish 
anxiety to accumulate ; as long as it keeps within the 
bounds of honesty and fair dealing, we must admit that 
men have a perfect right to earn and to save ; and must 
see that the wise providence of Nature has made it diffi- 
cult for the most selfish man to acquire riches, without 
giving increased and profitable employment to those wlio 
need it. We may despise the agent, but we must ap- 
prove of the result. 

XXYI. 

All value and utility is the result of the industry and 
skill of individuals appHed to the crude materials furnished 
by Nature, which thus become property in private hands. 
It is not difficult to form a clear conception of most 
private rights, nor to perceive the need of some powerful 
protector for their defense. 



64 

But witli this protector, the State, another class of 
rights come into existence, and obtrude themselves on our 
attention. Their nature and extent are not so easily de- 
fined and limited. They are called "Public Kights." 

It is evident that there was a time when the State, as 
such, did not exist ; that it must have come into existence 
after individuals had acquired some rights for themselves, 
and, probably, after society had made some progress 
toward a community. For the State originated in the 
feeling and experience of the members of this com- 
munity, probably in its infancy, that each one needs some 
protector to his rights, both original and acquired ; and in 
the instinctive conviction that this protector must be 
found in a union, for the purpose of mutual defense ; and 
in the organization of the strength and resources of all 
the individuals having social relations and intercourse with 
each other. 

We may say that the political body, in its origin, grew 
out of an incorporeal abstraction, an ideal but crude con- 
ception, suggested to individuals by their dangers, fears, 
and self-seeking needs. To a great extent it is still so. 
For the State has no personality. It can produce nothing ; 
it can create no value, and acquire no property, but 
through the agency of individuals. It cannot even take 
counsel or action but through the same agency. And it 
cannot command these services without means and value 
wherewith to maintain its agents. And these means can 
only be obtained through the contributions of individual 
members of the community. 

The State, in itself, being impersonal, cannot clear 
fields, grow croj)s, build, or manufacture ; or even make 
laws, or administer justice, but through the agency of in- 
dividuals, employed and maintained through the means 



6.5 

supplied by other individuals. In short, it is only an in- 
corporeal trustee of whatever it holds in the hands of its 
agents, for the benefit of those who have contributed to 
its resources and means of action. 

But as all private rights are in constant danger of vio- 
lation, until some powerful agency is organized for their 
defense, all who feel that their rights are in danger, 
readily unite to contribute, each some of his private 
means, or of his personal resources, to enable the new- 
born State to enter on its duty of protecting the rights of 
each and all in the community. 

The State exists only to serve the purposes of the in- 
dividuals, not the people to serve the purposes of the 
State. In short, the State, and the government, which 
is but the organized agency of the State, grew naturally 
out of the needs of individuals, each seeking security for 
his own private rights. 

And although, historically, the origin of the State, with 
its government agency, is remote and obscure ; and its 
development and complexity have been of gradual 
growth, from the increasing multiplication and more 
complex nature of the rights of individuals ; we have no 
reason to think that the original, primitive end and pur- 
pose for which it came into existence has changed. Its 
simple and single object is still the protection of private 
rights. 

" Public Rights," or the rights of the State, unlike 
private rights, have in themselves no original source of 
existence. In their nature they are altogether deriva- 
tive, springing from the necessity that individuals feel 
that in order to secure these private riglits, tliey must 
furnish the means with which the State shall oppose and 
control two evils incident to human society : 



66 

1. The violation of private rights by evil doers within 
the pale of the community. 

2. And by foreign enemies from without the pale of 
the community. 

In order that the State may have the means of admin- 
istering justice between individuals, and of preserving 
order in the community, it must have the command of 
some persons, efficient in body and mind, and some 
material means for their maintenance, in return for their 
services. To enable the State to repel tlie assaults of 
enemies from without, it needs the services of a great 
many more, and very efficient persons, and very abun- 
dant means for their support, and moreover for their 
equipment and employment. The State must tlius or- 
ganize two special agencies : one for the administration of 
justice at home ; the other, for the defense of the commu- 
nity against foreign enemies. 

In primitive times the mode of proceeding was simple 
enough. If the local chief or magistrate, in any part of 
the country, needed an assisting force to arrest offenders, 
and bring them to justice, he had recourse to what we 
may call a jposse comitatus, summoning all the able-bodied 
men of the neighborhood to give loyal aid in enforcing 
the law. If a foreign enemy crossed the frontier, or 
threatened attack, the head of the State summoned all 
able-bodied men to join him in arms, to assist in beating 
back the enemy. In these short campaigns, usual in 
early times, each man was expected to provide for his 
own subsistence for a time, or the seat of war furnished 
it. 

But the simplest and most economical government is a 
very costly thing ; and can be maintained in efficiency 
only by much personal service, and the expenditure of u 



67 

large amount of valuable commodities. Thus, in time of 
war, when such provision is not fully made beforehand 
by the State, its army eats up and desolates the province 
it undertakes to defend. However costly these prepa- 
rations for defense may prove, as without them there 
would be no security for either the jDcrsonal or proprie- 
tary rights of any one, it becomes obviously necessary 
that all in the community should unite in the surrender 
of some part of their property, tlieir personal service, and 
their natural liberty, to furnish their common agent, the 
State, with the means to defend the rights of all and 
each one. This is the motive which induces mankind to 
call governments into being, and to support them. They 
burden themselves with the cost of maintaining a gov- 
ernment, in order to escape yet greater and more intol- 
erable evils. 

It is probabls, nay obvious, that in primitive ages, dur- 
ing tlie infancy of the arts, mankind were represented 
only by small and scattered tribes ; having little inter- 
course, and, perhaps, no permanent connection with each 
other. 

Yet we have monumental evidence of the existence of 
great nations, at periods to which we cannot go back in 
history, embracing millions of people, with great cities, 
flourishing and perishing in times so remote, that their 
language, and even some of their arts, have been lost ; and 
the skeleton of their history can only be put together by 
a careful study of monumental fragments, eked out by old 
and doubtful traditions. 

But until many of the arts have made great progress, 
no country can sustain a dense population, still less build 
up the great cities, whose multitudes and magnificence are 
proved by still existing ruins. 



68 



XXYII. 

By what influences were these scattered tribes gradually 
aggregated into nations ? The first and chief agent was 
War ; the second was Commerce. 

We can easily imagine a probable case, in the most prim- 
itive times, in which war would at once lead to the first 
step in aggregating separate tribes into one body. An 
aggressive tribe harassing and attacking its neighbors, 
would awaken their animosity, and, if strong, would en- 
danger their safety. The natural feeling that " The 
enemy of my enemy is my friend^'' would at once lead 
two or more tribes, so harassed, to make a close alliance 
for mutual defense, especially if they were cognate in 
race and language. It might soon lead them further 
into makins: active war against their common enemv, in 
order to extirpate them, or drive them out of their neigh- 
borhood. 

The fact of having thus acted together successfully, 
secured their safety, and exhibited their united strength, 
would confirm their union, and, moreover, tempt other 
cognate tribes to join them. The successful leader, in 
the defensive-offensive war, would probably become the 
head chief of the confederated tribes ; which, by com- 
munity of language, of interests, and free intercourse and 
inter-marriage, would gradually lose sight of tribal dis- 
tinctions, and become one community. 

The aggressive and defeated tribe, if not extirpated, 
would seek allies to unite with and strengthen it. Soon 
there would be two somewhat numerous communities, 
hostile to each other, each seeking to strengthen itself by 
di'awing into its alliance all the tribes within reach ; and 



69 

there would be neither peace nor safety for anybody, in 
that region of country, outside of these two confedera- 
cies. 

If these rival communities differ in race, language, 
customs, and religion, their habitual, or at least frequent 
relations, would be those of war. 

We have, in the dawn of history, an example of this, 
in the prolonged struggles between the Aryan and the 
Turanian populations in the north of Persia, and in the 
countries to the east of the Caspian Sea. The former 
were even then an agricultural people, the latter con- 
tinued to be nomadic herdsmen. Nor has the contest 
ceased to this day. For the Turcomans, a branch or rem- 
nant of the Turanian family, continue their inroads upon, 
and their robberies of, the settled poj)ulation near to 
them, and lose no opportunity of plundering the caravans 
that pass within their reach. 

As a common danger first taus^ht men to value and 
seek union and combination for mutual defense ; so more 
frequent, numerous, and long-continued dangers, from 
more powerful enemies, led to further and more com- 
plete unions — which, outgrowing the early and simple 
tribal organizations, became States ; the more readily 
when a cognate origin and language suggested this union, 
which thus made up a true and natural nation, springing 
up by the re-union of kindred tribes. Thus, while 
society, in its simply social sense, arises from the social 
instincts of mankind, political communities originate 
from pressure from without, acting on the selfish instincts 
of men. 

In such cases, the actual conquest of a tribe, or of a 
province, if the people be cognate to the conquerors, 
often results in its indistinguishable incorporation with 



■ 70 

them ; which rarely happens when the race and language 
of the two are different. In that case the vanq^uished 
long continue to be, in fact, if not in law, a subjugated 
people. 

It is very difficult to trace and estimate the number 
and variety of evils springing from the attempt to bring 
about the political union of discordant materials. Even 
when the union of different races into one nation occurred 
in very remote times, there seldom is a tliorough inter- 
mixture of races • and the widely differing mental, moral, 
and physical traits distinguishing individuals, families, 
and classes in modern society, are largely due to this 
cause : difference of race. Tiiere is, at this day, no 
country in Europe in which such differences cannot be 
traced to this source. 

In many, perhaps most countries, we find proofs of the 
fact that the ruling class were of a different, and gener- 
ally, superior race to the mass of the nation. It was so in 
ancient Egypt, and is still in modern Egypt. In India, 
stratum after stratum of the population, to this day, 
easily distinguished as the offspring of successive races of 
conquerors, lie one over the other. In Russia the Scan- 
dinavian and the G-erman elements overlie the Sclavonic. 
In France the Franc and the Burgundian invaders origi- 
nated the ruling classes ; and after the lapse of more than 
thirteen centuries, the traces of this conquest were still so 
obvious, that Napoleon Bonaparte once characterized the 
revolution in France in 1789 as the insurrection of the 
Gauls against the Francs, In Ireland the Normans and 
the Saxons, and their descendants, have, for near eight 
centuries lorded it over the Celts; who derive their 
language, and their civilization, such as it is, from the 
conquerors whom they still call Saxons (the more numer- 



71 

OTIS body). Indeed, it does not appear that the Irish 
ever were one nation, but a number of tribes, or petty 
principalities, ever warring witli each other, until that 
conquest in the twelfth century. But for that conquest, 
possibly they might never have become civilized. The 
above examples show the extreme difficulty of amalga- 
mating people of different races into one nation. 

XXYIII. 

We believe that this evil: incongruity of race, disap- 
pears, often by a summary j)rocess, in the following cases. 
When a civilized people have taken possession of territory 
hitherto occupied by savages, they have never yet suc- 
ceeded in imparting their civilization to their new sub- 
jects. These may, for a time, form a lower class, within 
the pale of their civilization ; but they do not become 
imbued with its essential characteristics ; but merely put 
on some of its externals as a garment. 

In most cases, these savage races have simply died out 
before the conquerors, leaving their country to the intrud- 
ing strangers. For with many races of men, civilization 
and extirpation have proved, and are now proving, 
synonymous. The only safety any of them have ever 
found is, occasionally, in the inveterate hostility of their 
climate to the invaders. 

Such is the fate of the North American Indians, of the 
Maoris of ]^ew Zealand, of the blacks of Australia, and 
of the natives of most of the islands in the Pacific Ocean. 
Such is the process now going on in South Africa — with 
the Hottentots, Kaffirs, and other races. 

But the negroes of middle Africa, as far as we yet 
know, seem to afford the only exception to this result. 



72 

Hitherto tlieir malarious climate has protected them from 
extirpation. And in consequence of a forced emigration, 
the only emigration known to their race, they seem to 
have survived and thriven better abroad in slavery, than 
at home. For most of tliem have alw^ays been slaves at 
home — to masters black as themselves. It is only after this 
forced migration that they have ever been induced to put 
on the garb of civilization. But, low as is their intellect- 
ual capacity, they have proved themselves, the most im- 
itative of races, in copying the manners and habits of their 
masters. Yet when left to themselves, they show a 
strong disposition to strip off this garment. For civiliza- 
tion hampers them sadly. 

A noted author who died some years ago remarked, "I 
am not sure that any nation has a right to force another 
to be civilized." But civilized nations do not seem to 
have entertained this doubt. Indeed, the nation, which 
profess the highest civilization, the greatest humanity, 
and the most scrupulous respect for the rights of other 
peoples, has been the most active and unscrupulous in 
attacking, not only rude and defenseless tribes, but even 
great nations, which were easily and safely assailable ; 
seizing on their territory, or parts of it, under the 
]3lea of civilizing them. Whose greed and hypocrisy was 
it, that strove to force 023ium and Christianity on the 
Chinese at the cannon's mouth ? They succeeded with 
the opium, but failed as to the Christianity. They are 
still making aU they can out of tlieir partial success, to 
console themselves for their partial failure. 

It has been said by some progressive people, who are 
looking for the perfectibility of man, through their 
material and mechanical advance in the arts, that Nature 
intended the surface of the earth. for cultivation; and 



73 

that savages, who do not cultivate it, merely stand in 
the way of those who would. That the savage, in short, 
is a nuisance which ought to be abated. 

This plea, lame as it is, would not justify many acquisi- 
tions of territory, made by civilized nations, from savage 
or barbarous tribes. For instance, it does not justify the 
later British acquisitions in South Africa : where the 
country is best and chieily suitable to pastoral industry, 
and was already well stocked with the well-tended herds 
of the Kaffirs, and other native tribes. But when we find 
that not a few of these herds have been driven off, and 
the herdsmen exterminated, or extirpated, to make room 
for the most frivolous of all industries, the rearhig of 
ostriches, solely for tlieir ornamental feathers, to gratify 
the vanity of dress-loving women, thousands of miles 
away from the evicted and starving Kaffir herdsmen ; 
we are disgusted at the falseness of the plea for robting 
them of iheir pastures. 

The best apology for the civilized conquerors of the 
territories of savage and barbarous people, is that these 
people, even more than the civilized, acknowledge no right 
but that of the strongest. They, especially, obtained and 
maintained ]30ssession of their territory by violence and 
outrage against others. Tliat is their sole right and title. 

Much as the Spaniards have been abused and denounced 
for their rapacity and tyranny while in possession of 
Mexico for three centuries ; their conquest of it was fully 
justified by the fact, that it was the only way to put an 
end to the horrid human and cannibal sacrifices of the 
Mexicans, with their annual tens of thousands of victims. 
They actually seemed to have fattened slaves, in order to 
eat them.* So with the English conquest of North 

♦Prescott's Mexico. Book l. Ch. 3d. pp. 24-5-6-7. 



74 

America. Thej merely exterminated tribes chiefly occu- 
pied in extirpating eacli otlier. 

We need not further discuss the right of civilized 
peoples, to enter upon the regions, roamed over, rather 
than occuj)ied by savages. It is plain that the latter are 
outside of the institutions of these civilized invaders. 
Until incorporated with them, they are outlaws as to civil 
riglits. Our aim here is to trace the position, relations, 
and civil rights of those, who are acknowledged members 
of a political community. 

The general result of war has been, not only to mould 
and weld many small communities iuto fewer and larger 
States ; but to extirpate, or to subject the inferior families 
of mankind to the widening dominion and the multiply- 
ing numbers of tlie higher races. It is a common mis- 
take to su]3pose that the civilization of the latter has been 
the source of their superiority and their success. Their 
civilization is but one of the results of the higher endow- 
ment their race received from Nature. Institutions do 
not make races, hut races make institutions. We have 
no proofs that the more highly gifted families of man- 
kind, which have taken the lead in attaining to civiliza- 
tion, and in acquiring wide and durable dominion, ever 
were similar in their natural, constitutional, endowments, 
to the savage and degraded races, yet to be found in vari- 
ous parts of the world. 

War is simply one of the necessary evils attendant on 
man's condition and nature ; but it is only one of them. 
And although the most obvious, it is not necessarily the 
greatest that can befall them. 

Notwithstanding the immediate effects of war; the 
violent death of many, and the ruin and desolation of 
more of its victims ; it often, in its ultimate effects, pro- 



75 

motes the civilization and the well-being of mankind. It 
greatly stimulates enterprise and the inventive faculties, 
and develops the energies and resources of a nation. 

As long as human nature retains its tendencies to vice 
and corruption ; a permanent cessation of all wars might 
utterly enervate and corrupt the race, substituting 
meaner vices for the more violent impulses which urge 
them on to warlike enterprises. 

There are other great evils which prevail in time of 
peace. Tlie corruption of many, and the ruin and deso- 
lation of more persons, through the numberless wholesale 
rascalities, commercial and financial, of the last forty 
years, equal the evils of many a war. Who can measure 
the sufferings and misery caused by the potato rot in 
Ireland in 1846? Or by the famines in India, China, 
and Brazil, within twenty years ? Or by the plague in 
former centuries, or the Asiatic cholera in this century ? 
Or by the Keign of Terror in France — or even by that of 
the Commune in Paris ? Even the excessive overgrowth 
of a needy population, which often shows itself, is a 
greater and more enduring evil than many a war. 

It is certain that war, in all ages, has been ennobled by 
the spirit of self-sacrifice which men have displayed, on 
occasions calling for, and justifying the sacrifice, beyond 
almost any other emergency to which society is liable. 

We believe, in short, that war often takes the j^lace of, 
and supplants othei* evils, quite as malignant and more 
enduring than itself ; and that an occasional alternation of 
peace and war is the natural condition of human com- 
munities. 



76 



XXIX. 

]N"ext to war, commerce has been the chief agent in 
building np States, and in promoting civilization. The 
two have co-operated with each other, not always walk- 
ing hand-in-hand, but alternately urging on the same 
result. 

Commerce at once increases the demand for the pro- 
ductions of industry, varying and multiplying their 
forms ; and at the same time drawing from a distance to 
one point, the necessaries of life ; thus enabling ■ multi- 
tudes to live in close neighborhood with each other. 
This disseminates and increases knowledge — promotes 
skill in the arts, unites the strength and resources of 
numbers, creating thus a powerful political community : 
which gradually extends its influence, its language, and 
its rule over a wide region of country around it. 

As nothing can successfully resist the encroachments of 
a great State, but the power of another great State ; it is 
not surj)rising that in primitive ages, any community 
which, through the accidental concurrence of favoring 
circumstances, attained to considerable eminence in popu- 
lation, arts, and knowledge, should be able, not being 
hemmed in by powerful neighbors, in a few generations 
to extend, first its influences, then its rule, over a wide 
circle of tribes and territories around it — and become, 
under able and enterprising princes, an empire covering 
an hundred provinces. 

But any true history of the origin and progress of 
political society, would embrace, among other series of 
developments, a long and shocking detail of crimes by 
communities against communities and individuals ; and of 



77 

individuals against others, and against communities. The 
history of men and of society is largely made up of the 
history of crime ; showing how much mankind have mis- 
used the opportunities Kature has put witliin their reach. 

Yet all the injustice, treachery, and cruelty, recorded 
and unrecorded ; which even when known to us, fails to 
offend our better instincts, misled by passions, prejudices, 
and interests, do not prove that there is no such thing in 
JS^ature as justice, truth, and humanity, binding at once 
persons and on States. 

But this is beside our inquiry into the provision l^ature 
has made in man's state and constitution, to enable him 
to raise himself and his race above their primitive condi- 
tion. 

XXX. 

Wherever mankind have succeeded in raising them- 
selves above their j)rimitive condition, it will be found 
that this has been brought about by two causes : 

1st. That the people of that community, or most of 
them, or the ruling class at least, belong to one of the 
higher races, and — 

2d. That they have been, in a great measure, unob- 
structed by political and other influenees, in their efforts 
to better their condition, and in the enjoyment of their 
acquisitions. 

The work government has to do — administer justice 
between individuals under various and complicated cir- 
cumstances ; and to secure the community and private 
persons from wrongs by foreign aggressors — is quite 
sufficient to engross the agency of the State, without 
thrusting other duties upon it. Its two duties in pro- 
5 



78 

tecting rights, are both of a negative character, consist- 
ing simply of the prevention of wrong. 

It is no part of the duty of the State to feed the peo- 
ple, or clothe them, or house them, or teach them their 
trades, or to bestow on them any bounty. It has been 
said that the aim of governments should be " the great- 
est good of the greatest number," a most misleading and 
mistaken maxim, originating in a false conception of the 
purpose of government, leading to the grossest fallacies 
— to the usurpation by the State of a number of duties 
and prerogatives quite foreign to its true end, which is 
not to take parental control of the people, in order to do 
them direct good, or bestow any bounties upon them 
— thus teaching people to expect the State to do some- 
thing more than protect their rights — to transfer to them 
some part of the advantages and rights others have ac- 
quired for themselves — to turn to the State as their 
parent and patron, to which they must look for the 
benefits they enjoy, thus misleading and corrupting 
them. The only benefit the State can bestow on indi- 
viduals without robbing other individuals, is securing to 
them their own rights. 

We have already spoken of " public rights " which 
are inseparably connected with public duties. It is evi- 
dent that, unlike private rights, what are called " pub- 
lic rights " have, in themselves, no original source of ex- 
istence. In their essential nature they are altogether 
derivative. Until society is organized, public rights do 
not exist, but many private rights exist before that. The 
public rights can only draw their existence from the 
great mass of the rights of individuals. If there were 
no such things as private rights, public rights never 
could have came into being. JSTay more, until we have 



79 

acquired clear conceptions of private riglits, and of their 
need of further protection than that of the person to 
whom they belong, we could not conceive of any public 
right whatever. 

In all our reasoning as to " public rights " we start 
with minds saturated with convictions as to a multiplicity 
of rights vested exclusively in individuals. Public rights 
are merely the reflections or rejDresentatives of this great 
mass of private rights. To create public riglits a portion 
or percentage of rights must be advanced from private 
sources, as a premium for the insurance of the great 
mass of rights remaining in private hands. "Public 
rights," in short, are- the sentinels drawn out from the 
ranks of the great legion or phalanx of the private rights 
of the members of the community, and posted around 
them to mount guard for their safety. 

That such is the origin and nature of what are called 
" public rights " will be evident, when we inquire what 
are the resources at the command of the State, which 
constitute its rights and resources. These consist, sub- 
stantially, of its command over private property, and its 
command over personal services. We will speak first of 
property. 

All value and adaptation to utility is the result of the 
industry and skill of individuals, applied to the crude 
materials furnished by ?^ature ; whicli tlius becomes 
property in private hands. The State having, in itself, 
no personality, being in fact, an ideal conception, gener- 
ated by the selflsh needs of individuals, can create no 
value, acquire no property, nor act in any way, but 
through the agency of individuals ; and it cannot obtain 
these services until it has the means or value, wherewith 
to maintain those it seeks to employ. 



80 

But the many possessors of private rights, being all in 
urgent need of some powerful agent for tlie protection 
of those rights ; each one is stimii^ted to contribute 
something of his private means, or of his personal 
services, to enable the State to fulfill the duties imposed 
upon it, as the protector of the rights of all and each one 
in the community. 

Whatever form this protecting agency may assume, 
and however wide or narrow the community and the 
territory under its jurisdiction, if it is to protect all who 
live under it, it must be furnished, by the persons who 
make u^ the community, with the means of so doing. If 
it is to administer justice, it must have judges, sheriffs, 
and many subordinate officers, and all the means needed 
to bring litigants, offending parties, and witnesses before 
its courts, in order to decide the cases between them ; 
and, in criminal cases, for the trial and punishment of 
offenders. This regular administration of justice re- 
quires not only that the State should have a revenue to 
meet large expenditures, but it must have also some fixed 
possessions — landed property and costly buildings, court 
houses, jails, record offices and the like, in various parts 
of the country. 

If the State is to protect every one, in every part of 
the country, it must have easy access to every part of it. 
And the people must have free access to the Government, 
and to every part of the country to which public duty 
may call them. This makes it necessary that the State 
should acquire, and keep in its hands — as public property 
— the strips of land needed for making convenient public 
roads wherever they are wanted. The king's highway 
must run throughout the length and breadth of the land. 
Moreover, such roads are needed for the intercourse and 
commerce of the people with each other. 



81 

If the State is to protect and defend the commnnity, 
one and all, against inroads and assaults by foreign 
enemies ; it should acquire and hold those local positions 
in the country, of especial strategical value for prevent- 
ing such attacks and inroads — and for preparing and pre- 
serving the means of defense. For this reason the State 
should acquire and hold the sites most advantageous for 
fortresses, arsenals,, navy yards, armories, magazines, and 
barracks, and other military and naval stations ; as a 
timely preparation for fulhlling the duty of defending 
the country. Many great nations are under the constant 
necessity of maintaining, at monstrous annual cost, a nu- 
merous army, and strong navy, besides all the subsidiary 
establishments needed to keep both in effective condition. 

The State being charged with the great duties of ad- 
ministering justice, and of defending the country, will 
not only need a head ; but also, many other high officials, 
intrusted with the superintendence of various branches 
of the public service ; and it must make provision for 
maintaining all these officials in a style suited to the im- 
portance of the positions they hold. The State that starves 
its officials, causes them to plunder the peo])le, and de- 
fraud the State. 

Moreover it must have a seat of government, offices for 
the transaction of public business, and for preserving 
records. It must have a parliament house, a suitable res- 
idence for the head of the State; perhaps for many others 
high in office. It must have a treasury, and probably a 
mint. We need not undertake to enumerate everything 
of this kind it must have, nor fix a limit to the cost. It 
is obvious that the State, in order to perform the func- 
tions for which it exists, must not only receive a large 
revenue, but it must become the possessor of landed 



82 

property ; often itself of great value from its natural ad- 
vantages ; and improved at great, often enormous cost. 



XXXI. 

Thus the State must become a proprietor. Yet, every 
penny of its property originated in, and is derived from 
the earnings of the industry and skill of some private 
person. In all its expenditures it is spending the peo- 
ple's money ; that is, the money of those of the people, 
who, not consuming all they earn, have a surplus fund, 
out of which to pay taxes. 

But the State holds its property by a different title, 
and for a different purpose than that, by, and for which, 
individuals hold theirs. All their property is the result 
of the industry, skill, and economy of individuals, either 
the present owners, or acquired by them through inher- 
itance, bequest, or purchase, from those with whom it 
came into existence, as property ; and they hold it for 
their own use and benefit. 

All that the State possesses of revenue, or of property, 
is derived, directly or indirectly, from the industry and 
enterprise of individuals, usually contributed in the shape 
of taxes, sometimes of personal service ; the object of 
these contributions being to enable the State efficiently to 
fulfill its duty in protecting private rights. The State is 
merely a trustee of all tliat comes into its hands; the 
beneficiaries are the persons who make up the com- 
munity, and more especially those who support the 
State. 

It is no more true that the acres which make up the 
territories of a country belong to the State, or to the na- 



83 

tion considered as a mass or unit, than that all the horses, 
cattle, household stuff, stock in trade, tools, or money in 
the country, belong to the State or people en masse. A 
nation is a unit only for the defense of its component 
parts. All these things, both land and movables, are 
the acquisition of individuals, often got at great risk and 
toil ; and continue to be private property, except that 
small part which the State must acquire and keep in 
hand, to enable it to protect the community considered 
in their individual capacities. 

If it were true that the State, as a unit, had a right to 
divide these things equally among all the members of the 
comnmnity, whenever it j^leased, it must be obvious to 
all reflecting persons that this measure would put a stop 
to all far-reaching industry ; or, at least, to all economy 
in using tliat which was j^roduced, and effectually ruin 
the prosperity of the country. It would amount to a 
sort of national suicide. 

But it is to the benefit, and for the security of every 
proprietor of rights, that the State should be authorized, 
especially in sudden emergencies, to take possession of 
anything in the country, the use of which is essential to 
the defense, safety, or good government of the com- 
munity ; the private- owner thus stripped of his right, 
being entitled to full indemnification, by as good title as 
other owners have in their property, which they have 
retained. 

Thus the spot occupied by a private house may become 
essential for the site of a fortress, for the defense of the 
country ; or of some important part of it, as a city or a 
harbor. The State may force the owner to sell it, but he 
is entitled to a full and liberal price, to be measured 
rather by its value to the State than to the owner, A 



84 

court-house or a jail may be needed, and no fit site be 
vacant. Here again the State may call on the owner to 
sell, on similar terms, to facilitate the administration of 
justice. 

In time of war a farmer's corn, hay, and cattle, may be- 
come essential for tlie feeding of troops and their horses ; 
the State has a right to purchase these things so needed, 
but the farmer must be no loser by the sale. These 
transactions are not more for the security of the owner, 
thus compelled to sell, than for that of the rest of his 
countrymen, who remain undisturbed in their posses- 
sions. The latter have no right to throw a loss on him, 
to secure their own safety. Every man in the country is 
the debtor, or the robber, of the proprietor thus de- 
vested of his property by the State, until he is fully in- 
demnified. This is true as to all private property taken 
for the use of the State, under the pressure of any as- 
sumed necessity, whether for the defense of the country 
or for any other public purpose. 

"When a proprietor is forced to yield up a part of his 
land, for public use, as for a highway, the State, possi- 
bly, may justly take into consideration any greatly in- 
creased value of the remainder, accruing from the new 
use of that part which has been taken, in abatement of 
the price paid to the proprietor. But the exercise of 
this power is dangerous to private rights. 

We should never lose sight of the fact that all prop- 
erty, and all value of any kind, which the State can ac- 
quire, is derived, directly or indirectly, from the industry, 
enterprise, and skill of individuals ; and that the State 
has no right to exact from them, and to retain in its own 
hands, nu)re than is necessary to enable it to fulfill its 
functions, as guardian of private property and private 



85 

rights. The State exists not as an end in itself, but 
merely as a means, for the attainment of an end — the 
security of private rights. 



XXXII. 

How, then, has the misconception arisen, and grown 
into a conviction, in not a few minds, that what wq call 
"public rights" are not derivative, but original in 
their nature, springing from some source within them- 
selves ; and that they are sacred in their character, be- 
yond private rights ? 

Political communities, both great nations and little 
States, have often been brought to such perilous extremi- 
ties, by lawlessness within, and hostilities from without, 
tluit it became impossible to fix on any ratio between 
the private rights men should retain in their own hands, 
and those they should contribute for the maintenance 
of the power and efiiciency of the State. 

Returning to the use of the figure of speech : that 
public rights are sentinels, drafted from the ranks of the 
great phalanx of private rights, and posted around it, to 
keci") guard against the attacks which may be made upon 
this great body. The danger to the latter may become 
so urgent, that strong detachments have to be drawn 
from the main body, to form outposts to support the 
sentinels. The urgency of the danger may so augment, 
that the use and command of the bulk of all private 
rights and personal services may be needed, for a time, 
perhaps a longtime, to protect and preserve the existence 
of any private rights whatever. In this case the phal- 
anx of private rights becomes utterly broken up, the 



86 

organization is reduced to a mere skeleton ; and it be- 
comes difficult, perhaps impossible, to refill its ranks and 
restore its order. 

Thus civil society, not only in small communities, but 
even in great States, has often been in such danger of 
utter ruin and disintegration, that no government but 
one of the most energetic, concentrated, and absolute 
character, and possessed of the most ample means, can 
provide for its defense and safety. 

At some period or other of its history, almost every 
nation has experienced this disastrous condition of its 
affairs, often more than once, and for long periods. These 
preaedents for the extreme powers and exactions of gov- 
ernment are not soon forgotten by either the governors 
or the governed. The latter become used to exactions 
and restrictions. The powers of the State are wielded 
by men in office ; and it is the nature of men, in power, 
to grasp at more power. 

Thus all governments have an innate tendency to 
exalt their prerogatives, to swell their powers by claiming 
larger means of action, and by usurping new matters of 
jurisdiction ; until many people have been gradually led 
to believe that they themselves derived their rights 
through the grants of the very government, which ex- 
ists only by the contributions men have made from their 
private rights, in order to bring into existence and equip 
the State, for the protection of all private rights, which 
have been acquired, nay, created, without any aid what- 
ever from the State. 

While new generations have been growing up under 
this unnatural condition of tlie country ; so far, in some 
cases, have these abuses been pushed by the governments, 
so grasping have been the usurpations of tliose who ex- 



87 

ercised the powers of the State, that these powers and 
prerogatives seemed to have no hmit ; and it appeared 
doubtful whether anarchy and general robbery would be 
more intolerable than the rule of the great robber, orig- 
inally established and put into office, to prevent the very 
evils it was now perpetrating. 

We will give an example of this wholesale robbery and 
perversion of what is, perhaps, the most important right 
men can acquire. 

In what is now known as British India, although, in 
that immense and populous region every field had been 
brought under culture, and acquired its value and utility 
from the enterprise, industry, and skill of individuals ; it 
had become the law of the land, under the Mogul dy- 
nasty, that every acre in tlie peninsula was the property 
of the Great Mogul, and every occupant of land was his 
tenant at will. And since the conquest of India by the 
English, British lawyers have strenuously maintained 
that the Mogul rule of tenure was the fundamental law 
of the land ; and the Government has practically acted on 
that assumption. The land tax has, in many cases, 
proved a rack-rent, and led to the eviction of a multitude 
of landholders. 

This land tenure was the result of one conquest : that 
by the Moguls, under Baber, a descendant of Timour 
the Great ; and its continuance was the result of another 
conquest : that by the English East India Company, now 
succeeded by the British Government. For the climate 
of India rendering it impossible for the British to colonize 
the country themselves, the last conquerors had, as in- 
dividuals, no personal interest in the tenure of land there ; 
and unlimited power of taxation has proved a great con- 
venience to the Government. 



88 

Under tlie feudal system a very similar theory, as to 
the tenure" of land, was inculcated in western Europe. 
But the practical results were widely different. 

When the provinces of the Roman Empire, one after 
another, had been overrun and conquered by different 
nations and tribes from tlie north of Europe ; in each 
case of conquest the king, or commander of the conquer- 
ing army, cantoned detachments of his forces, under sub- 
ordinate leaders, in the strongholds, or at the strategical 
points of the newly acquired territory, to keep the van- 
quished people in subjection, and to draw supplies f I'om 
each province. As these detachments and their chiefs 
were originally under the command of the prince or gen- 
eral of the conquering nation, the whole of the conquei-ed 
country and all its resources were assumed to be, for the 
time, at his disposal. 

But when these secondary leaders, most of them being 
chiefs of tribes, long accustomed to follow them in war 
and peace, had for years occupied, each a particular prov- 
ince or county ; and they had made themselves strong 
there, and secure in their occupation, among other means, 
by placing the smaller strongholds, with an allotted por- 
tion of territory, under the charge of their own tried and 
trusty officers ; each of whom, in turn, had his own fol- 
lowers of the conquering tribe to provide for, the feudal 
system gradually, but naturally grew up. 

Each of these allotted territories became a fief, held, 
in theory, at the appointment, or by the grant of the 
sovereign, as lord paramount ; but really as an estate of 
inheritance, not to be forfeited but for some high crime, 
as treason or rebellion. And the officers of these great 
landholders, in their turn, became similar vassals to them, 
holding the lands allotted to each of them by his im- 
mediate chief, on a similar feudal tenure. 



89 

We will not stop to inquire into all the causes why, in 
one conquest, that made by the Moguls, the occupants of 
land were ultimately reduced to the condition of tenants 
at will ; and why the other conquest, that made by the 
Germans and Scandinavians, should result in giving the 
landholders estates of inheritance. One fact is sufficient 
to account for the difference. 

These N^orthern conquerors in Europe were of the most 
gifted and intellectual races — individually self-reliant, and 
imbued with a strong spirit of independence ; which was 
only controlled by the obvious need, in war, of subordi- 
nation and obedience to discipline. The motive of these 
invaders, in making this conquest of new territories, un- 
like that of the English in India, was to divide the land, 
more fertile and in a better climate than that which they 
had abandoned, among themselves (the conquerors) in 
proportion to the rank and merit of each warrior. 

But with a hostile people under and around them, they 
still had to keep up their organization as an army, and 
their connection with and obedience to their chiefs. With 
a nation of conquerors thus organized, there was a solid 
reason for the reference of all tenures of land to the grant 
of the sovereign head of the nation. 

Out of this theory of the feudal system, that all land 
was held on conditional tenure^ by grant from the sover- 
eign, in whom the ultimate title rested as lord para- 
mount, the lawyers and courts have manufactured the doc- 
trine of " Eminent Domain," vesting all land in the State. 
Their knowledge and familiarity with the " Roman 
Imperial Civil Law," politically a code of absolutism, 
matured in the reign of Justinian, helped the lawyers 
much in reaching their views on this point ; and court 
favor with arbitrary monarchs at later times, did yet 



90 

more to establish tlie legal assumption as to the limited 
right of individuals to and in all their possessions. 

But this doctrine of "Eminent Domain," usurping in 
its tendencies, and often tyrannical in its operations, is a 
perversion of fact, nature, and truth, having no other 
ground to rest upon but this : the State, created for the 
defense of all private rights, is occasionally compelled to 
use the private right of some person, which accidentally 
becomes the necessary means of protecting the private 
rights of all in the community ; and the person thus 
stripped of some private right thus appropriated by the 
State, is at once entitled to full indemnification out of 
the rights of all those not so devested of their possessions. 

When a State acquires additional territory by conquest, 
purchase, or treaty ; if there be vacant or confiscated land 
in it, it would be a perversion of the true end of govern- 
ment, and an act of gross usurpation for the State to 
assume the part of a landlord, and of a great landholder, 
letting out its land on lease, and collecting its rents from 
its tenants. The territory has been acquired through 
the material means furnished by all those who contributed 
to the maintenance of the Government ; and often chiefly, 
or very largely, by the personal service of some of them, 
in getting possession of the territory. 

It is the duty of the State, which, after all, is only an 
agent or trustee, to seize early occasion to pass over the 
bulk of the unoccupied land into the possession of 
private persons ; assigning bounty lands to those who, 
by their personal services, have contributed actively to 
the acquisition of it, and selling out the remainder on 
reasonable terms, to any members of the community 
wishing to purchase ; thus increasing the area of private 
property, and the number of landholders, and lightening 



91 

the burden of taxes laid on them to maintain the Govern- 
ment. 

The land so acquired by these new proprietors is, and 
ought to be, as much theirs as any property can be. 
They have bought it with their services, or their money ; 
and are indebted to no one for their right to it. The 
State is merely the channel through which they derive 
and trace their title, and has no claim on them more than 
on any other landholder under its protection. 



• XXXIII. 

Besides the fundamental fact that all value and property 
is the result of private industry, skill, and economy ; the 
whole history of public and private propertj^ when con- 
trasted, proves that the State should possess and hold no 
more property than is sufficient to enable it to perform its 
functions as guardian of private rights. 

Governments pay more and spend more than indi- 
viduals in similar transactions. Governments are more 
frequently and more largely cheated ; for they must 
always act through agents, the State itself having no 
personality ; and therefore, the vigilance, foresight, 
economy, and good faith, generated by jDrivate personal 
rights and interests, are wanting in the transaction of the 
State's affairs. IS'o agent can be trusted like one's self. 

It would be useless labor to search far into the records 
of history for examples to prove how often States have 
been cheated by their agents high in office ; while we 
have close at hand so many witnesses in the United 
States, and in the individual States which, nominally, 
make up that federal body. Avoiding needless details 



92 

and personalities, we may safely refer to tlie notorious 
fact, that of late years, among the politicians who have 
filled the chief posts under the Government of the United 
States, most of them went into ofiice poor, and came out, or 
remain in office rich ; although it is well known that their 
salaries are too moderate to have made their fortunes. 
One political party has been in power twenty-three 
years ; and its leaders and prominent supporters have 
become immensely rich ; and when, seven years ago, a 
statesman, who had earned the reputation of being a 
rigid reformer of abuses, and searcher out of political cor- 
ruption, was elected President of the United States, these 
bloated j^lunderers of the Treasury combined to procure 
a false return as to the result of the election, and put 
into ofiice the candidate who had not been elected ; and 
from that time to this, the systematic plundering of the 
country by those who were pretending to serve it has 
gone on. Since the false President filled a term, another 
election has taken place, under circumstances that show 
that the first essential sought in a candidate for that 
office, is well-established corruptibility. The fact of 
liaving had a hand in more than one of the gross frauds 
perpetrated on the Government and the people, is a 
strong recommendation to office with the active political 
agents who manage the elections. 

What we have said as to political corruption among the 
United States officials, is equally true, on a smaller scale 
(for there is less money to be stolen) as to the officials of 
the States, and the large commercial cities. {See the 
career of the notorious Boss Tweed.) 

Again, the private owner of pro^^erty improves it at 
less cost than the State does, having no motive to pecu- 
late on his own rights, as the agent of the State has on 



93 

those of the public ; not beina^ tempted to extravagance, 
bj having the State treasury to fall back on. The his- 
tory of private expenditure is usually that of economy ; 
that of public expenditure is, very largely, that of cor- 
ruption and waste. 

The natural use of property is the use and enjoyment 
of it by private persons whose industry and economy 
created it. The possession and use of it by the State 
springs altogether from the existence of two evils, to 
guard against which every one must make some sacrifice 
of rights, to enable the State to afford security against 
them. 

The worst of all governments would seem to be a 
landlord government, like that of the British in India, 
claiming that the country, acre by acre, belonged to the 
State, and that State foreign to the country and people it 
governs. Any country in which the great bulk of the 
property, especially the land, say nineteenth-twentieths 
of it, is not in private hands, is in a false and unnatual 
condition. 

Simplify it as we may, the work government has to do 
is difficult and complex. Some of it concerns more espe- 
cially local interests ; and that portion of it is best man- 
aged when intrusted to authorities of a local origin. In 
fact, this feature — the localization of power, burdens, and 
responsibility, in matters in which that is practicable — is 
characteristic of the best governments. The centraliza- 
tion at one point, of all the authority and resources of 
the community for all public purposes (even of strictly 
local interests), especially if it be a great nation, is a cer- 
tain source of usurpation and political corruption. 

To give a simple example of the locating of the power 
of the State at different points where it is needed. The 



94 

maintenance of roads, bridges, and ferries, althougL. 
needed for the keeping open of tlie communications of 
the whole country, is especially important to each part of 
it, in which each of these public conveniences chances to 
be located. The charge of maintaining them, therefore, is 
usually intrusted to a commission appointed in and for 
each county, who are authorized to levy the cost of main- 
taining these works, by assessments on the people of the 
county. The State may further empower these officials 
to take such part of a man's land as is needed for a high- 
way, paying him a valuation for it. 

So, a town or city being made a munici]3al corporation, 
acquires a local government for some limited purposes. 
The State may assign to it the power to purchase, by a 
forced sale, the land of private persons, within the limits of 
the municipality, in order to open or widen a street, to make 
a market-place, or a town hall, or for any other needed 
public improvement. But in assigning this power to 
local authorities, the State stretches the so-called right of 
" eminent domain " to the utmost extent that can be 
justified. It makes tlie county, or the city, a State with- 
in the State, for some local object, in order to facilitate 
the objects of local government and police ; and gives it 
the power to raise monej^, by taxes, for those purposes. 

But this does not authorize the corporation to raise 
money by taxation for purposes foreign to the object for 
which its powers were granted. A municipal corpora- 
tion goes. quite beyond its charter, when it raises money, 
by taxation, to carry on a commercial undertaking, or to 
assist in doing so ; as by granting a homes, or an exemp- 
tion from taxes, to private parties, who establish a fac- 
tory or other business enterprise ; or to undertake such 
on the part of the corporation. Any tax-payer may well 



95 

object that, " This is taking my money for no legitimate 
object of government ; bnt to enter on, or assist other 
people in projects, in which I have taken no part, and I 
may decline all responsibility." I believe that if a tax 
were levied for the express purpose of raising such a 
bonus, and the tax-payer were to refuse payment, the 
courts of law would sustain him in his refusal. 



XXXIV. 

We have commented on the dangerous character of 
this doctrine of " eminent domain," and its liabihty to 
abuse in the hands of the State, But some govern- 
ments, from sheer carelessness as to private rights, have 
gone far beyond the theory on which the right is founded, 
and given a false, unjust, and dangerous latitude to the 
right of " eminent domain." We will give a late exam- 
ple, near at hand : 

In an important province in British ]^orth America a 
landholder had, on his farm, some very copious springs, 
used to work a mill, and he had, near at hand, a hill of 
considerable height. A town of twenty thousand peo- 
ple, three or four miles off, on the other side of a con- 
siderable river, was in need of a supply of good water. 
These copious springs could furnisli a good and sufficient 
supply ; and the hill, a good site for a reservoir, from 
which it could be conveyed to the town. 

Here was a plain case of one party owning property, 
which another party wished to acquire. The State had 
not the least interest in the matter, to call for the appli- 
cation of the right of "eminent domain." Audit cer- 
tainly had no right to assign its powers, under that 



96 

theory, to a municipality, to be exercised beyond its own 
jurisdiction and boundaries, in the county around it. 
The matter concerned only an individual on the one 
hand, and a corporation on the other. 

Common justice dictated that, if the town needed this 
source of pure water, the corporation must offer to the 
owner, a stranger and a foreigner to the town, his land 
lying miles outside of its boundaries, a price sufficient to 
induce him to sell it. If he refused their offer, this 
foreign corporation must offer more, or wait until he 
changed his mind. 

But the parliament of this province, full, doubtless, of 
wise and honest men, and especially of learned and adroit 
lawyers, not content, in their legislating zeal, with exer- 
cising the right of " eminent domain " for the State ; must 
extend and pervert its application for the convenience of 
a local corporation, to enable it to make a good bargain 
out of a private proprietor. 

Under a statute enacted for this and similar cases, the 
property of a landholder may be, and was appraised at a 
very moderate price, indeed, a very low price, far below 
what he was willing to sell it at ; perhaps not one-tenth 
of what it was worth to this covetous and intrusive pur- 
chaser ; taken from the owner by a legal proceeding which 
was a mockery of justice, and given to a corporation, with 
which he had no connection whatever. 

This law teaches the principle that: "Where one 
man has property, which may be useful to, and is 
coveted by many, especia,lly if that msmj be a corporation, 
the State will limit the price, and force a sale for their 
benefit." 

It is true that there have been a large class of cases, in 
which the State has forced the transfer of private prop- 



97 

erty, whicli the owners did not wish to sell ; I mean land 
on the line of railroads. Bnt these cases stand on a totally 
different footing. 

We have seen that the State, in order to perform its 
functions, as the protector of all private riglits, must have 
access to every part of the country. It nmst have high- 
ways throughout the length and breadth of the land. 
Now railroads are highways of a peculiar kind, in 
addition to the ordinary liighways. The means of rapid 
communication and transportation have become necessary 
to the State and community. To secure this, railroad 
companies are chartered. Under these charters, private 
landholders may be stripped of their land, or some part 
of it, by a forced sale to a railroad — not for the company's 
benefit, but to supply a supposed public need, or great 
convenience to the State and the community. 

No railroad company can ever acquire as high and clear 
a title, to the land thus obtained by these forced sales to 
it, as the right and title of the private persons, who have 
been devested of their land, to make way for the railroad. 
These corporations are but chartered common carriers, 
subject to the law as such. It is true they have been 
granted, each a monopoly in the use of its highway, for 
three reasons : 

1. Because, the peculiar construction of the road ex- 
cludes the use on it of the means of transportation used 
on ordinary highways. 

2. Because, if their road were open to the trains of 
other railroads, accidents fatal to life and destructive to 
property, would be vastly multiplied. 

3. In order to induce the company to make the great 
outlay needed to build the road and keep it in working 
order. 



98 

But these roads, having been brought into existence 
purely for the benefit of the State and the community, 
are still under the control of the State ; which may fix 
rates, times, and terms of transportation. It may, per- 
haps, even enforce a sale of the railroad with less stretch of 
authority than it had used toward the private landhold- 
ers, who had to make way for the railroad. As the State 
may have occasion to close one highway and open 
another, so it may do with a railroad. But it is bound to 
pay the corporation the cost, or at least the value, of its 
property. For the charter, granted by the State, was the 
inducement which led the corporators to the outlay they 
made. 

XXXY. 

We have said that the resources of the State consist of 
its claims on personal services, and on private property. 
What are the principles which should regulate and limit 
the exercise of these powers? First, as to personal 
service. 

The object of political society ; the true motive that 
first drew men into, and still keeps them in it ; is to 
obtain the aid of their associates in defending their private 
rights. Any one who has joined himself to a political 
community, or has been born in it, and had his rights 
protected by it, is bound to give his aid in defending the 
rights of his associates, and in upholding the community 
from which they all seek protection. 

Thus, as was the usual practice in primitive times, the 
local magistrate may call on all the men in the neighbor- 
hood, to give aid in quelling a riot, or an insurrection 
against the law, in preventing a crime, or in arresting a 



99 

criminal. The State, when threatened by a great danger, 
as invasion by a powerful enemy, may rightly call for the 
services of every man able to bear arms, to resist the 
enemy. And this is true in any part of the country 
especially in danger, even when a general levy is not 
needed throughout the whole country. Moreover, there 
are otlier public duties, in which the official agents of the 
State need occasional aid ; which may be rendered, and in 
some cases, are best rendered by men not in office— for 
example, by men drawn as jurors, to ascertain facts, 
involved in cases brought into court. There are many 
other matters in which private men may be jnstly called 
iij)on to perform occasional public duties, as witnesses, 
appraisers, experts, etc. 

But the right of the State to demand personal service, 
can never be justly extended to compelling a man to adopt 
a special profession, trade, or calling. Although the State 
may, and often has, compelled men to bear arms, or labor 
on defensive works, it has no right to choose a man's 
occupation, or means of earning his living, for him ; to 
compel him to take up the trade of a soldier or sailor, any 
more than the profession of a lawyer, or physician, or the 
trade of a mechanic, or the occupation of a plowman. 

It would be an utter perversion of the relations of the 
State, to those who compose the community which 
created the State, if these persons were not free to 
choose for themselves their occupations and pursuits, ac- 
cording to their aptitudes and opportunities. The State 
came into existence to serve the purposes of individuals ; 
not individuals to serve the purposes of the State. If 
any control in this matter of men's callings, external to 
the party himself, can be justly claimed, it is that of 
parents and guardians alone. 



100 

Kor, on a man's attaining skill in any art, science, or 
profession, lias the State a riglit to force liiui into its serv- 
ice, in the exercise of his occupation. 

The State has no claim on an individual, beyond that 
which it has on all and each one in the community ; un- 
less he has made a contract with the State, binding him- 
self to the performance of services in the line of his pro- 
fession. When, in England, five centuries ago, Edward 
III was about to build Windsor Castle, in magnificent 
style ; instead of alluring workmen, by contracts and 
wages, he assessed each county in England to send him so 
many masons, tilers, and carpenters, as if he had been 
levying an army. He showed great moderation in not 
first impressing 'the architects to design and superintend 
the structure, and the sculptors and painters to adorn 
this palatial fortress. This measure makes it manifest 
that the first elements of private right, and personal lib- 
erty, were not then understood, or were at times disre- 
garded in England. 

The only exception to this right of men, to choose 
their own trades and occupations, we can think of at this 
moment, is, where the State, to restrain a growing evil, 
and to abate a common nuisance, has taken charge of for- 
saken children, and youthful criminals. To relieve itself 
of this burden, it may apprentice tiie derelict children, 
to be taught trades, which, j)erhaps, as adults they would 
not have chosen. And, in the case of the youthful crim- 
inals, the State may turn them over to occupations, in 
which they will be placed long under vigilant control, as 
in the military or naval service. Yet when it is practi- 
cable, these derelict children, and even the youthful 
criminals, should be allowed some latitude of choice as to 
their callings for earning a living. 



101 

I can hardly imagine a grosser violation of the natural 
relation between the members of a community and the 
State which they have established over themselves, than 
the French system of " conscription " : putting the names 
of young men into a lottery, to decide which among them 
shall take up the trade of a soldier, for the best years of 
his life — at wages beneath those of the meanest laborer ; 
in order that the rest of the community may cheaply 
escape from military service. This is a gross over- 
stretching of the authority of the State. Yet, although 
in the extent of its application to the nation, it goes far 
beyond, in enormity it falls short of the old English 
press-gang system of forcibly manning the navy : arrest- 
ing as criminals sailors and watermen, anybody, in short, 
who looked like a longshoreman, and pressing them into 
the naval service. 

These things, both in France and England, originated 
in the intense selfishness and injustice of the mass of the 
community — ever ready to sacrifice others to secure them- 
selves. Any man may devote his life, his labor, or his 
wealth for the good of his country. But his countrymen 
have no right to select any one as a victim for sacrifice, 
while others, under equal obligation to the State, are ex- 
empted. For example : When a horrid chasm suddenly 
yawned open in the forum (the story, we believe, is told 
in Livy's somewhat fabulous history) the soothsayers 
foretold that great calamities would happen, if the most 
valuable thing Rome jDossessed was not thrown into 
it. While they consulted as to what was the greatest 
treasure Rome had, Curtius Melius, a gallant youth, put 
on his armor, caparisoned his horse, led him into the 
forum, blindfolded, and mounted him. Then exclaiming 
" Rome has no treasure as great as courage and arms !" 
6 



102 

lie spurred his steed on to a desperate leap into the mys- 
terious chasm ; which at once closed up, as if it had never 
threatened destruction to Rome ! Curtius may have had 
a right to take this fatal leap. But the Romans had no 
right to throw Curtius into the chasm, even to attain that 
great end, the safety of Rome. 



XXXYI. 

The end for which the State exists is to afford security 
to private rights. What we have learned to call " public 
rights " exist only for the protection of private rights ; 
came into existence after, and are derived from them. 
Private rights had come into being before there were 
any public rights whatever. We cannot repeat this 
truth too often, or put it into too many shapes. For both 
statesmen and private persons are ever losing sight of this 
root of all political principles. 

In creating a State, and establishing a government, 
men are seeking, not an end, but a means to an end. 
Governments are not ends in themselves, but simply the 
means devised for attaining the great end — the security 
of private rights. Yet men have often, wdth this view, 
built up a great and irresistible power, which resulted in 
a ruinous and merciless tyranny, not protecting, but 
trampling on all their rights. 

The State cannot give protection to private rights, un- 
less it has the means of acting, the command of value, or 
of personal services. Indeed, it stands in need of values, 
chiefly to purchase personal services. But as all value is 
the result of the industry and skill of individuals ; they, 
if they want the protection of a government, must con- 
tribute the means needed to support it. 



103 

In more primitive states of society, these contributions 
take the shape, chiefly, of personal service. In more 
advanced stages of civilization, they take the form, chiefly, 
of taxes. The motive for j)aying taxes is to secure pro- 
tection to one's rights. So that taxation and protection 
are co-relative terms — a right linked to duty. 

What are the principles which should guide and con- 
trol the State in levying taxes ? Chiefly these : The 
amount raised in taxes should not exceed what is needed 
to maintain the State in efficiency ; for that is taking 
from the tax-payer more than is needed to provide for the 
protection of his rights. Moreover, the taxation should 
be equable. That is, no man should be made to pay the 
tax, or any part of the tax, that should fall on another. 

But when we come to arrange a fair and just system 
of taxation, many natural difficulties stand in the way. 
We And that the State must embrace under its protec- 
tion multitudes, who neither do nor can pay taxes — as 
most women and all children, who have no property. 
In fact, the adult laborer, who consumes all he earns, 
can pay no taxes ; and the attempt to tax him directly, 
falls on his employer, indirectly. Thus, a tax on farm 
laborers is a tax on farms, for this tax raises the cost 
of living to the laborer ; which results in a rise of 
wages, and in the cost of cultivation. This objection 
applies to all poll-taxes, whicii have always been the most 
difficult to collect, most irritating to the people, and have 
caused many dangerous insurrections in past times. This 
reveals to us that taxes are of two kinds — direct and 
indirect. 

Direct taxes are laid on, and paid out of the savings 
from the result of labor — that is, out of property. Al- 
though the State affords protection to other rights besides 



104 

those of property, yet as all taxes must be paid out of 
the results of men's industry — and the more property a 
man has, the more protection he needs for it — there is 
much equity in proportioning a man's tax to the amount 
of property he has. In direct taxation States seldom fall 
short of this. But some governments have gone beyond 
this, and have departed from the true principle and just 
ground of equable taxation, based on the protection it 
affords. 

They have proceeded on this false principle, how to 
raise the most revenue. Inasmuch as a man who has a 
large property can usually pay his large tax more easily 
than he who has but a small property can pay his small 
tax ; governments often are guilty of increasing the ratio 
of taxation, sometimes by a graduated increase of the 
ratio of an income tax — oftener by heavier duties and 
excises on commodities used chiefly by the wealthy, or 
by exempting small properties or incomes from taxation. 

ISTow. as the value of the protection the State affords to 
property, or income, is in proportion to the amount of a 
man's property, or income ; this increasing rate of taxa- 
tion is simply making the rich pay a portion of other men's 
taxes : it is an insidious war upon wealth. For, if by 
any manoeuvre in imposing taxes, that laid on an amount 
of property worth, say, $100,000, or on the income de- 
rived from it, in the hands of ten men, is increased on 
an equal amount in the hands of one man, it is imposing 
a fine on the acquisition of wealth, as if it were a crime. 

Income taxes are otherwise unjust. A merchant, in a 
prosperous or lucky year, may have a larger income than 
a great proprietor. A professional man in high practise 
may have as large. Another man may have as large an 
income, derived from property in another country, in 



105 

which he pays high taxes on it ; and the State he lives 
■under can give no protection to the property abroad. 

The State lias no claim on property beyond an equable 
contribution with the other private property under its 
protection. The only properties which should be ex- 
empted from taxation are those which are of so little 
value, that the tax would little exceed the cost of collect- 
ing it. 

The system of taxation on an increasing ratio, in pro- 
portion to property or income, is the germinating seed, 
which may well grow up into the usurpation by the State 
of a right to decide that some men have acquired too much 
property ; that he who has a million in money, or 20,000 
acres in land, must yield up half his wealth to the State, 
or for division among penniless or landless men. Such a 
government will soon discover that one hundred thousand 
in money, or 2,000 acres in land, is too much for one 
man ; so a new distribution must be made. And it will 
go on, seizing and dividing the property, created by in- 
dustry, and accumulated by economy, until this system 
of public robbery left no security to property, and had 
sapped and destroyed the foundations of industry and 
economy, which alone can create it. 

On similar grounds it might be objected : What right 
has any man to more than one house, or one farm, while 
others have none ? Or, in short, wliy should one man 
have an abundant breakfast, dinner, and supper ; while 
another has but a short allowance of dry bread ? 

The acquisition of property by individuals, and their 
exclusive control of it, is essential to the welfare of the 
whole community ; even of those who have no proprie- 
tary interest in any part of it, but only derive employ- 
ment and maintenance from it in the hands of the owners. 



106 

It furnishes the chief and necessary means of supporting 
the State. From the verj nature of property, it is espe- 
cially open to encroachment and trespass by both individu- 
als and the public — for both may undermine and destroy 
it. Therefore, the holders of property are, as a class, 
entitled to whatever amount of influence and control in 
the government may be needed to secure their proprietary 
rights. 

In countries where property is not safe, men fear to 
invest their earnings in visible and tangible undertakings 
which improve the country : as highly cultivated farms, 
improved live-stock, costly and durable buildings, mining 
enterprises, and other valuable and permanent resources. 
They either wisely slacken their intense industry, toiling 
less, and spending what they earn ; or they give to their 
earnings such shapes as can be carried about the person, 
concealed in the house, perhaps buried in the garden ; 
or send it to another country where property is in less 
danger from public and private robbers. 

But the way the State commonly plunders the people 
is by indirect taxes. These differ from direct taxes chiefly 
in this : They are not laid on the property the tax-payer 
expects to keep in his hands, but on jDroperty in transitu, 
that which he got to part with, as goods inijDorted into 
the country for sale, or on the manufacturer's productions, 
or the merchant's stock in trade, or on the license, or per- 
mit, granted by the State, to practise some profession, or 
follow some special occupation. 

In all these cases, the person who pays the tax, expects 
to be indemnified for his outlay in taxes paid, and more 
than indemnified, by the profit he makes out of those to 
whom he sells, or out of those who employ him in his 
licensed occupation. 



107 

These purchasers and employers are the real payers of 
the indirect tax. ITow, the payer of a direct tax knows, 
to a penny, how much he pa_ys in taxes. In the indirect 
tax, the party who seems to pay it, is repaid his outlay 
with a profit, and often a monstrous profit, extracted 
from those who deal with him, either buying his goods, 
or employing him in liis licensed occupation. These last, 
unlike the j)ayer of the direct tax, never know how much 
they pay the State. For their tax is inextricably mixed 
up with the price of the article bought, or the cost of the 
service paid for. 

The whole amount paid in direct taxes, deducting the 
cost of collecting it, goes into the treasury of the State. 
The cost of collecting indirect taxes is usually far greater. 
The facilities for fraud on the revenue are greater still. 
And a large class of dealers and licensed parties make 
great profit by that kind of taxation. " So that, the State, 
in collecting the same amount of revenue by direct taxes, 
takes less from the people, than when it is collected by 
indirect taxation. 

The State, therefore, in providing itself with the means 
needed to protect the rights of ever}' one in the com- 
munity, should do so in the mode which least trammels 
the freedom of individuals, and encroaches least on their 
acquisitions. This alone is honest taxation. 

XXXYII. 

While society, in its merely social aspect, originates 
with the social and domestic instincts ; the State, or so- 
ciety in its political aspect, springs from the purel}'' selfish 
instincts of mankind. Self-seeking man looks around for 
personal safety, and protection to his rights. 



108 

It would be well if this selfish seeking for safety were 
pure and simple, and less active and aggressive in its 
nature. But no sooner do men find themselves under a 
government with powers for their protection, than, as 
these powers cannot exercise themselves, but must be 
wielded by men ; there springs up a keen, often a fierce, 
struggle between individuals to act for the State, and ex- 
ercise some portion of its functions. 

The government is recognized as a convenient institu- 
tion, a handy machine, for working out the ends of 
private interest and ambition ; and vast numbers of the 
most able and energetic members of the community, soon 
cease to view it in any other light — in their hearts — ^but 
their mouths are fuller than ever of professions of devo- 
tion to the public good. 

He has not lived long, or much observed men, who has 
not detected the rareness of unselfish patriotism, of real 
devotion to the public good, the general absence of 
honest and honorable motives among those who seek for 
place and power, A wise man of the last century was so 
forcibly struck with the frequency, ease, and success 
with which men of the worst character put on this cloak 
of hypocrisy, that he was impelled to exclaim, " Patriot- 
ism is the last refuge of a scoundrel !" 

Abuses in office grow up rapidly, until the powers of 
government are perverted into the properties or privileges 
of persons in office ; or of classes, which, as far as they 
can, throw the burden of supporting the State, and them- 
selves, on the remainder of the community, who chance to 
be out of favor with them. 

This abuse does not depend on form of . government. 
The autocratic despot has often striven to use his vast 
power economically, seeking to give protection fairly to 



109 

all under his rule. But the best of them is often sur- 
rounded and misled by those who, seeking only to serve 
their own private interests, contrive to make him their 
agent, and even tlieir tool. 

It needs little knoMdedge of history to teach us, that 
the most unscrupulous tyrant is a dominant party, es- 
pecially if it has been exasperated by a long struggle 
with its opponents. These party struggles are common 
to every form of government. But their course is, per- 
haps, most distinctly traced in republics and democracies. 
But under every form of government the result is the 
same. Instead of the State being ruled with a view, 
simj)ly, to secure all the rights of each member of the 
community ; the government is administered for the ben- 
efit of the party in power, and, as far as possible, at the 
cost of the party out of power. 

This has seldom been more plainly manifested than in the 
United States, and France at this time. In both of these 
countries universal manhood suffrage is the nominal basis 
of political power ; and office and power, of course, have 
fallen into the hands of demagogues. (For democracies 
have demagogues in place of statesmen.) These have per- 
suaded the major part of the people, by the most plausi- 
ble theories, that the value and returns for their own 
labor and productions are greatly increased, by throwing 
burdens and obstructions on the labor and productions 
of other portions of the people of those countries. 

These burdens and obstructions on trade and industry 
take the shape of high duties on imported goods. Not 
so much to bring revenue to the State, as profit to the 
home producers of commodities similar to those that 
would be imported from abroad. 

In France there are two great classes of producers, be- 



310 

sides others, on whom this obstr-uction of free, natural 
commerce weighs heavily. The producers of wines and 
of silks. In the United States, there are four great 
classes of producers, besides others, who are robbed by 
this system of taxation. The growers of exportable 
grain, of animal food, of cotton, and the miners of the 
precious metals. This so-called " protective policy " cuts 
them off from a large part of the natural profits of unre- 
stricted trade and exchange in the commerce of the 
world. For the duties on imported goods, which come 
in exchange for goods exported, take from the home pro- 
ducers 30 or 4:0, in some cases 60 or 100, per cent of 
what they might receive in return for what they send 
abroad. Is this distributing the burden of supporting 
the State equably on tliem and on other classes? 

Has our reader ever considered what is the nature and 
origin of tliat offense, which is called smuggling? Steal- 
ing, and robbing, and the destruction of your neighbor's 
property, and a multitude of other acts, are crimes in 
their very nature ; and were criminal before any human 
law undertook to punish them. 

But there is, in ISTature, no such offense as smuggling. 
An essential ingredient, in your natural liberty, is the 
right to carry, or send the proceeds of your industry, any 
part of your portable property, to the best market you 
can find for it. And when you have there exchanged it 
for other commodities, you have naturally an equal right 
to bring your new acquisitions home with you. They 
are as much yours as that was which you gave for them. 
These are the natural and justifiable acts, out of which 
governments have manufactured the offense of smug- 
gling. They create the crime by legislation ; they pro- 
vide for its punishment by further legislation. 



Ill 

Almost every commercial country (except Holland) liaa 
made its laws against smuggling a complete and attractive 
school for training large classes of people to deception, 
fraud, perjury, and violence ; by the great profit held out 
to them,' on articles overburdened with most unfair 
taxation, utterly disproportional to that levied on other 
property. Yet States wonder at the frauds on which they 
themselves have put a premium. 

It is needless here to consider further the principles 
of a false political economy, and its aggressions on man's 
natural rights. The selfish projDensities of men are 
always striving, in civil society, to throw the burden of 
supporting the State on other people, and off from them- 
selves. They even devise unnecessary taxes, not to raise 
revenues for the State ; but with the sinister and selfish 
object of making their own trades and occupations more 
profitable than Nature gave them the means and oppor- 
tunities of becoming. 

XXXYIII. 

We must repeat, that although the origin of the State 
Is remote and obscure ; and the development and com- 
plexity of its government, of very gradual growth ; yet 
we have no reason to think that the end and purpose for 
which it exists has undergone a change. Its single and 
simple object is the protection of the rights of those who 
live under its rule. 

What government now existing, or of past times, can 
we point out as having limited its action and its legisla- 
tion to this simple programme — ^the defense of the rights 
of individuals living under it ? 

They all have either used their powers for the profit 
of some favored, portion of the community, at the cost 



112 

of others not favored ; or they have stretched their 
prerogatives, by usurping functions and powers, which 
naturally belong to individuals, and of right should re- 
main in their hands. These abuses have varied in differ- 
ent ages and countries, but they have never ceased to 
exist. A large ]3art of history is made up of the strug- 
gles of portions of nations resisting the encroachments 
of their own governments, on their natural or legal 
rights. These are among the most painful, yet instruct- 
ive, chapters in the annals of mankind. 

Many governments have obstructed and counteracted, 
sometimes for ages, the provident arrangements of Nat- 
ure for promoting the progress of mankind ; and this 
often by blundering legislation, with the best intentions, 
in matters foreign to the true end of government. 

They have undertaken to regulate the people's religion, 
and still do so, under the pretense of educating them. 
To regulate their trade and control their industry and 
occupations, by giving bounties to some pursuits, while 
putting obstacles and even prohibitions on others. Gov- 
ernments have, at times, undertaken to regulate people's 
dress, diet, and habits of life, by sumptuary laws ; and of 
late years have been constantly urged to, and often have, 
prescribed what they shall not drink. Nothing has stood 
more in the way of human progress and civilization than 
the blundering of governments on matters outside of 
their trne jurisdiction. 

Although governments have often been forced upon 
people by violence — as by wars, civil and foreign, by 
actual conquest; and yet oftener by their own chiefs, 
successfully resisting foreign attempts at conquest, and 
thus attaining to almost absolute power — still government 
is so necessary to society that even bad governments are 



113 

long borne with, for the preponderence of good derived 
from them, when compared with anarchy. Even when a 
people throw off a government, it is only to replace it 
with another, which they hope to find better, but which 
often proves worse. 

Political changes often grow out of gradual modifica- 
tions of the polity under which a people have long lived ; 
and they seldom foresee the ultimate effects of these 
modifications until too late to remedy them. For they 
not seldom lead to radical revolutions, destructive to pri- 
vate rights. 

While it must be admitted that every government 
which has lasted long must have served the purpose of 
protecting a large part of the interests of a considerable 
part of the nation ; yet all governments have been very 
unsuccessful when they assumed the part of bountiful 
benefactors of the people living under their rule. 

As we said before : It has been held by many that the 
State should adopt as its principle of action, " The seek- 
ing the greatest good of the greatest number." But this 
plausible motto is fallacious and sure to mislead. The 
government must at once become the busy and inter- 
meddling patron of the people's private affairs ; see who 
need assistance and encouragement ; and who can thrive 
without it. It will be sure to find a numerous, hungry, 
and greedy class, clamorous for special favors. What 
the deserving portion of the nation ask is, simply, se- 
curity to their rights. The chief use of the State to 
them is apt to be security to their rights, against the at- 
tacks of others, in the same political community. 



114 



XXXIX. 

Mankind are indebted for their progress and improve- 
ment to individuals higUy gifted by nature ; not to gov- 
ernments, which, usurping prerogatives and duties forr 
eign to their end, have often, by ill-judged interference 
with J^ature's providence, stood in the way of man's 
progress. 

We have already j)ointed out particular cases, in which 
the hnman race owe their advance to the discoveries and 
inventions of individuals. It is almost impossible to 
over-estimate this source of the bettering of man's condi- 
tion, or to give a history of its development. 

When we remember tliat primitive man, like some 
savages of the present day, conld not connt beyond the 
number of his lingers ; we mnst see that those more acute 
and observant minds which gradually and successively 
built up the art of abstract numeration, then those of 
mensuration, of form, and proportion, thus laying the 
foundation of all exact science ; bestowed a boon of in- 
finite value to those who came after them. To other 
individuals men owe similar benefits, in their discoveries 
and inventions in various arts ; not only those extending 
their control over material jSTature, but others, enlarging 
their intellectual and spiritual range of existence and 
enjoyment. 

The names and history of these early benefactors to 
their race are utterly lost to us ; particularly of the ear- 
liest, and therefore the most important, as being those 
who first led men into paths, by treading which they 
could better their condition. In vain we ask, " Who in- 
vented the plow ?" " Who first taught men to keep a 



115 

record of the past ?" We cannot even estimate the num- 
ber of these, our early benefactors ; or the variety and 
vabie of the benefits they bequeathed to us. The 
imaginative Greeks deified them, attributing to them 
sujDerliuman powers. 

To come down to periods and persons witliin recorded 
times ; wlio can say liow much that intellectual race, the 
Greeks, and we ourselves, through them, owe to Homer 
and Aristotle ? To come down to modern times, it is al- 
most as difficult to estimate how much Lord Bacon, or Sir 
Isaac Newton, has added to the material and intellectual 
gains and welfare of those who have come after them. 
Perhaps it is yet harder to say, how much, of a different 
character, English-speaking people have gained from 
Shakespeare and Milton. It would seem to admit better 
of calculation and measurement, the inquiring as to the 
material and intellectual gains we have derived through 
James Watt, the first successful employer of steam as a 
mechanical power, or through George Stephenson, the 
inventor of the locomotive engine. 

But the simplest of these inquiries would far overtask 
the powers of calculation and analysis Newton brought to 
the composition of his Principia Mathematica, or those 
La Place used in preparing his Mechaniq^ue Celeste. 

It may be said that all these gifted persons, much as 
they may have achieved, were simply working out their 
own object for their own profit. If that were true — but 
in most cases it would be false — still, however great the 
results of their self-seeking labors, so much more clearly 
would it prove Nature's provident arrangements for the 
benefit of mankind. Through this j)rovidence of Nature 
there is a fermentation of ideas in human society, always 
at work, which, like the yeast kneaded into a batch of 



116 

dougli for baking, tends to lighten and raise the whole 
mass. 



XL. 



Kindly l^ature has further shown her provident care of 
man, by implanting another trait in his constitutional or- 
ganization, as obvious, but, perhaps, not so important to 
the progress and improvement of the race, as that of which 
we have last spoken. 

Nature has made man a sympathetic being. This 
seems to be, among animals, somewhat peculiar to man. 
For although we now and then see something like it 
among the brutes, especially those in a state of domesti- 
cation, its manifestations are rare and indistinct. Man is 
the only animal we can characterize as constitutionally 
benevolent, beneficent, and charitable. 

For when man's evil passions, and his animosities, are 
not aroused, he is a well-wisher, and kindly, to his fellow 
man, and ready to interest himself in his welfare and 
success. We have noted a marked example of this in the 
unstinted hospitality expected and practised among the 
hunting tribes of the northwest of North America. 
Indeed, human society, in a semi-barbarous state, is not 
often wanting in hospitality. Yery often that is made 
the special point of honor, even up to improvidence for 
themselves. 

Hospitality is not only the eailiest and simplest shape, 
in which charity and beneficence can show themselves ; 
but all the charities of man to man originate in hospital- 
ity. The furnishing the destitute with shelter, food, and 
warmth, and opening a friendly intercourse between those 
who have and those who need. For it is unnatural to 



117 

human beings in a condition of ease and plenty, to see, 
unmoved, tlieir fellow creatures destitute, and suffering 
from want. Our training in domestic life, in reference 
to those dependent on us, prepares us to perceive, and 
promptly to relieve, any case of painful destitution, when 
it is in our power to do so. Accordingly we find hos- 
pitality most freely practised where it is most needed, and 
least likely to be imposed uj)on — in remote and little fre- 
quented places. 

We have not asserted too much in saying that all the 
charities of man to man originate in hospitality. It is 
making the stranger, for a time, a part of your family, 
sharing in all that they enjoy. If you follow out this 
idea, hospitality is often not limited to the relief of the 
material wants of the day. The host, in taking on him- 
self that part, is led to open his heart ; and will seldom 
withhold from his guest any information, instruction, or 
warning, he can give, useful or beneficial to the stranger. 
Thus affording valuable lessons to those who are often in 
urgent need of local and other intelligence. 

The hospitable home, moreover, is often not merely 
the scene of a brief hospitality. It is, not seldom, a hos- 
pital for the relief of the sick or the wounded, and a 
school of instruction affording precious lessons to those in 
urgent need of them. In out-of-the-way places, where 
hospitality is most needed, Nature has provided a stimu- 
lant to the exei'cise of it, in the craving, of those who live 
retired lives, to get intelligence and hear news from the 
outer world ; so that the host may thus often learn much 
from the stranger under his roof. 

We have said that one of the effects of society, in 
bringing numbers together in habitual intercourse, is to 
exhibit strongly the contrasts of their condition. We 



118 

are not slow to perceive that, in many cases, want and 
suffering are the result of accidents and misfortunes, 
springing often from temporary causes ; and tliat some 
timely assistance may completely relieve them. 

When we cannot trace the evils suffered, to the conduct 
and negligence of the sufferer, we are strongly tempted 
to give him such relief as is in our power. And even 
when he is experiencing the effects of his own folly or 
vice, we may assist him until our sympathy is overtasked, 
and our charity worn out. We have to learn gradually 
to distinguish between unavoidable and, what may be 
called, criminal destitution, arising from the folly, im- 
providence, or indolence of the sufferer. 

All charity is, at lirst, that of individuals, or at most, 
that of families ; and it takes all the various forms of 
benevolence. But occasionally cases of want and destitu- 
tion occur in society, far beyond the means of individuals 
to relieve them. Several charitable persons are prompted 
to divide among thein the task of relieving this accumu- 
lated mass of suffering. In the midst of a dense popula- 
tion we soon learn to recognize the occasional occurrence 
of wholesale distress, and also the frequency of imposi- 
tion on charity. We see the need of permanently organ- 
izing voluntary combinations among the charitable, in 
order that each one may know what the others are doing ; 
thus adopting method in our good works, and guarding 
against systematic imposture. 

The combining of their charities by individuals gradu- 
ally led to the founding of hospitals, of almshouses, and 
very largely to the association of persons of the same 
trade, or craft, for occasional mutual relief. 

Probably the first hospitals founded were lazar houses 
for the relief of lepers. In the Middle Ages a cutaneous 



119 

disease, mistaken for the leprosy of the Scriptures, seems 
to have prevailed early, widely, and for centuries. Its 
disgusting, incurable, and supposed contagious character, 
rendered it almost impossible to practise hospitality to 
these wretched sufferers. Being excluded from other 
society, these lepers naturally consorted with each other ; 
and, groujDed together, excited the more commiseration. 

Yery early some of the richer ecclesiastical corporations 
were moved to found hospitals or lazar houses for the 
relief of these hopeless and helpless outcasts from society; 
at once ]3roviding for their maintenance there, and con- 
fining the supposed source of contagion to one spot. 

When charity had been thus organized on a system, 
incorporated, as it were, by the voluntary combination of 
benevolence, the example soon originated other hospitals 
besides lazar houses. 

A history of charities would exhibit the expenditure of 
a vast amount of zeal, labor, and wealth, by a great num- 
ber of people of every class ; many of whom devoted their 
lives, and substance, exclusively to works of charity in 
various forms. But the truth of history comjDcls us to 
say, that the active combinition and organization of 
benevolence will be found to have chiefly arisen since the 
Christian era. Before that, the history of organized 
charity is pretty much a blank page. 

Tiiese organized charities originated chiefly with eccle- 
siastical corporations, or through their influence ; and 
with confraternities, or guilds of various trades. But 
many rich persons founded charities, and the shapes these 
took were much influenced by the professions of the 
founders. Churchmen and lawyers, two learned classes, 
were apt to found schools and colleges, rather than hospi- 
tals. Medical men saw the value of hospitals for the 



120 

treatment of disease, and the advancement of their own 
art. In time the tendency showed itself to appro- 
priate some of these to the treatment of sjDecial ills that 
flesh is heir to, as the surgical treatment of wounds, or 
the medical treatment of contagious diseases. 

Rich merchants and guilds of tradesmen founded alms- 
houses for decayed members of their own calling, and 
schools for their orphans. 

From the earliest times an occasional disposition mani- 
fested itself in some parents to abandon their children ; 
and in some countries infanticide became frequent. Even 
in antiquity not a few States made efforts to provide for 
derelict children. And in early ages of Christianity fur- 
ther efforts were made to check the evil. A stone basin, 
was placed at the door of some cathedrals and churches for 
the reception of abandoned infants. And at length found- 
ling hospitals were established in many places. But from 
the great mortality in them, their ntility is yet doubted. 
They diminish infanticide indeed, but encourage licen- 
tiousness and bastardy. 

The Revolutionary government in France went so far 
as to give a premium on this immorality by offering to 
every girl who should declare her pregnancy 120 francs, 
and declared bastards the children of the State — enfants 
de la jpatrie. 

We need not enumerate further the shapes taken by 
private charity. This is all we shall say in tracing the 
genesis of charitable institutions. They all derive their 
origin from the beneficence of private persons, beginning 
in hospitality. 



121 



XLI. 



Thus, in spite of the egotistical, self-seeking motives 
whicli are tlie predominating impulses whicli set man- 
kind to work ; it is obvious that, in all human society, 
men do give no small part of their acquisitions, of their 
time, and of their labor to hospitality, to charities, and to 
beneficent objects which have for their end the good of 
others rather than themselves. This can escape the ob- 
servation of no class of persons, least of all, of that watch- 
ful class who fill public ofiice, and exercise the powers of 
the State. 

This official and ruling class, under every form of 
government, are ever on the lookout for the means and 
opportunities of adding to their own influence ; this is 
what exercises their utmost watchfulness. Their position 
in office engenders a frame of mind suggesting that 
the State should interfere in every matter, and engross 
all power and influence. 

When, in the course of time, the charities and benefi- 
cences of private persons, flowing together, have created 
funds and institutions for the relief of human suffering 
and the instruction of ignorance, the State, that is, the 
office-holders who wield its power, see in these fountains 
of accumulated charity sources of influence and power 
which they think the State, that is, they themselves, ought 
to appropriate. They are never at a loss for plausi- 
ble reasons for usurping new prerogatives for the State, 
In almost every country events occur, and occasions grow 
up, which afford colorable excuses for these usurpa- 
tions. 

In the Middles Ages, long before the Reformation, in 



122 

England and elsewhere, tlie Churcli, charging itself with 
the care of the poor, made that one chief ground for 
getting into its liands as much property, of all kinds, as 
possible. The parish priests and the monastic clergy, 
differing much on otlier j)oints, united in working on the 
superstitious fears of the sick and the dying ; and the 
bishops usurjDed jurisdiction over the probate of men's 
wills, and over the distribution of the personal property 
of intestates. 

This grasping policy, in time, vastly swelled the wealth 
of the Church. That was constantly growing. It not only 
enabled it to feed vast numbers of the poor, to support 
many hospitals, the utmost splendor in public worship, 
and in the retinues of great prelates ; but to practise a 
politic hospitality to people of rank on their journeys ; 
for the episcopal palaces, monasteries, and priories spread 
over the country, were not only more numerous and 
better furnished, but far safer than the inns in those 
troubled ages. All this swelled the influence of the 
Church, which was constantly acquiring additional 
wealth, and more numerous and larger landed proper- 
ties. 

As all this territorial property came into the hands of 
corporations which, unlike individuals, never die ; and 
churchmen held and taught the doctrine that it was a sin 
for them to alienate what had been dedicated to the 
service of Cod and his saints ; it became obvious that if 
this process of acquisition continued long, the Church 
would become the sole proprietor in, and of the country. 

In addition to these acquisitions, the Church, in Eng- 
land, made some long steps toward assuming legal juris- 
diction, both in civil and criminal cases ; and even went 
so far as to urge the setting aside of the common law of 



123 

the kingdom in many matter.-, and substituting for it the 
canon law, borrowed largely from the Koman civil law. 

But here the clergy found that, in their usurping 
mood, they had overstepped the bounds of prudence ; the 
peremptory answer of the Barons in Parliament was : 
Nolumus leges A ngli(E mutare : A blunt refusal to 
change the customary laws of the kingdom, including 
trial by jury, and viva voce testimony in open court, 
for a foreign code patronized by the Church and the 
Papal power. 

This condition of affairs in England led to the enacting 
of the statutes of Mortmain^ prohibiting the alienation 
of land for charitable uses by will, or by deed not made 
a year before the death of the owner ; in order to prevent 
priests and others from importuning a dying man to con- 
vey his land to such uses for the good of his soul. It 
led also to other legislation against the encroachments of 
the Church and the Papal power. 

These Mortmain laws were especially needed then and 
there ; but they are useful at all times, and in all coun- 
tries ; for it is natural and right that the bulk of property 
of all kinds should be in private hands, for it was all cre- 
ated by the industry of individuals for their own use. 
At that time, moreover, in England, the vast and grow- 
ing wealth of the Church was under the influence, if not 
the control, of a foreign and (at times) even a hostile 
power, the Papacy. 

At a later day, after the Reformation, the peculiar state 
of the times, both as to religion and politics, gave the 
English Government a most plausible excuse for usurp- 
ing the patronage and control of charities of all kinds. 
In the case of endowed charities, indeed, one of the two 
great duties of the State, the administration of justice, 



124 

imposed upon it the obligation to see that the endowT 
ments were not perverted from the design of the donor, 
and misapplied by those into whose hands they had 
fallen. In time, doubtless, many of these endowed char- 
ities were grossly mismanaged, and became liable to great 
abuses and frauds. To the State, therefore, the inspection 
of them, but not the patronage, properly fell, in admin- 
istering justice. 

In England, before the Reformation, the wealth and 
abuses of the Church had brought into existence a vast 
pauper population, and fostered their idleness and va- 
grancy. It had no means of subsistence but the ill-judged 
doles of the churches and monastic houses, and the 
private alms which the Church exhorted the faithful to 
give to these beggars : "All that is given to them," said 
the Church, ' ' is but returning to God some part of the 
abundance with which He has blessed the giver." But, 
usually, the clergy preferred being themselves the al- 
moners, or the channels through which these fountain- 
streams of charity should flow. If the channel itself was 
dry, it naturally absorbed much from this stream of 
benevolence. 

After the Reformation, England found itself overrun 
with sturdy and lawless beggars, who formerly drew 
their maintenance from the indiscriminate charity of the 
monasteries and convents, now dissolved. They had 
been trained up to a life of vagrancy and indolence. 
Here was a new evil, a nuisance spread over the face of 
the whole country, with which the State had to deal. It 
did not deal with it wisely, certainly not successfully. 

As a remedy for this evil. Parliament, in the reign of 
Queen Elizabeth, entered on that series of enactments 
which gradually grew up into that portentous code, the 



125 

" English Poor Laws," a vast mass of unwise legislation 
of which we are not likely to see the end. The poor 
laws, with the decisions under them, would fill a large part 
of a law library. In this legislation the State steps in, 
and undertakes to administer all the charity for the relief 
of pauperism ; and at length went so far as to make it 
criminal, under most circumstances, to ask relief from 
private persons. 

What is charity in its restricted, vernacular sense, of 
relieving the wants of the needy ? An essential element 
of charity is depriving yourself of something of your 
own, useful to you, in order to relieve the wants of an- 
other. Charity includes self-denial. In tliis sense the 
State cannot practise charity. For the State, not earning 
or producing anything, has no fund out of which it can, 
by practising self-denial, meet the demands of charity. 
The State can no more practise charity than I can, out of 
the purse intrusted to me for safe keeping, by another 
man. The most that the State and I, in this case, can do, 
is to practise the charity of Robin Hood, take from the 
rich to give to the poor. 

Private charity, in fact, has a great fund at its disposal, 
and often draws on it freely. But this fund, if skillfully 
usurped by the State and artfully used, can be turned 
into political power. Those who represent the State 
step in, and turn this stream into channels of their own 
choosing. They assume the duty and the power to regu- 
late all the spontaneous benevolence of individuals. It 
can be turned into political power, and therefore belongs 
to the State. By simply converting what is naturally 
private charity into a tax and a burden, to maintain a 
system of relief by the State, they teach the beneficiaries 
to claim it as a right, with thanks due to no one — as if 
7 



126 

they had naturally a legal claim on the products of other 
men's labors and savings. It tends to make all the needy 
and unfortunate no better than restless and vas:rant 
tramps, the pests of all well-ordered society. 

Naturally, a member of a political community has no 
claim of right to require the State to provide for his 
wants. This is not one of the purposes for which the 
State came into existence. The business of the Stdte is 
to protect him in the exercise of his natural rights, and 
in the enjoyment of the results of his exertions. Rightly 
understood, there can be no such thing as State charity. 
The making it a public burden, the support of it obliga- 
tory on individuals, in the shape of taxation, utterly 
changes its nature. It is charity no longer. As well 
might the law decree that hospitality to strangers, which 
is the root of all charity, should be obligatory on all 
householders. It would be hospitality no longer ; but 
like the billeting of soldiers on the people of a region 
under military occupation. 



XLII. 

If any one thinks it easy or practicable for the State 
to nil the part of almoner, in dispensing the charities and 
benevolences of private persons — (all charities must draw 
their supplies from private sources, for the State neither 
earns nor produces) — let him study the history of the 
" English Poor Laws " for the last three centuries, and 
learn the result of that vast body of fluctuating and ex- 
perimental legislation. For England has dealt more 
largely and systematically with this matter, the relief of 
pauperism, than any other country. 



127 

The result of this State charity is a long and painful 
tissue of failures, most plainly visible toward the end of 
the last century and the beginning of this. 

The system had been most successful on the very 
point not aimed at, the breeding of paupers. For it had 
turned the poor laws into a mode of paying wages ; and 
of beating down wages to the lowest point that could 
sustain life. Most farm laborers received mucli of their 
wages from the poor rates, being hired out to the farmers 
by the poor-law commissioners. Pauper labor had dis- 
placed that of independent workmen. The independ- 
ence, integrity, industry, and domestic virtues of the 
laboring classes, in some places, were nearly extinct. In 
some parishes the poor rates, assessed on property, ex- 
ceeded the whole annual rental, and no tenant would hold 
it, even rent free. Proprietors saved money by throwing 
their fields out of cultivation, thus escaping the payment 
of the poor rates. 

In 1820, when England had but half its present popu- 
lation, and not one-fourth of its present wealth, the poor 
rates had risen to £7,300,000. The poor were paid for 
their necessities, not for their industry, and were tempted 
to increase the former, and neglect the latter. The 
pauper laborer received more relief if he took a pauper 
wife — and still more for every pauper child. Paupers 
married at seventeen or eighteen, and claimed the allow- 
ance the day after marriage. The poor laws thus gave a 
most unnatural and ruinous stimulant to a population, 
which already could not find work or wages. Relief 
from the poor rates was, practically, a bounty on indo- 
lence and vice, most injurious to the independent laborer, 
tending to bring him down to the pauper level. 

A laborer could hardly get work out of his own parish, 



128 

for fear he might gain a settlement in another, and 
become chargeable to it as a pauper. The courts of law 
were full of suits between parishes, as to their liability to 
relieve the vagrant pauper — ^who was tossed about like a 
shuttlecock from one parish to another, each seeking to 
relieve itself of the burden. The laboring poor, thus re- 
stricted of their natural liberty of seeking a field for their 
industry, had almost returned to the state of villanage, 
like the serfs, the adscripti glebcB of the Middle Ages. 

The effect of this State charity was hardly less injuri- 
ous to the benevolent impulses of those who had the 
means of relieving suffering and want. Burdened already 
with heavy assessments for the maintenance of the poor, 
over which taxation they had no control, either as to its 
amount or its application, they were naturally tempted to 
say to the needy and ailing, " The almshouse and the hospi- 
tal are there open to you ; I am compelled to pay highly to 
support them. Go there for relief!" The poor laws 
discouraged all private voluntary charity ; even made it 
an offense in many cases to ask for relief. They engen- 
dered feelings of hostility and animosity in the breasts of 
the paupers, against those who were compelled by law to 
maintain them. 

Should the reader wish to master fully the effects of 
the "English Poor Laws," we would recommend to him 
Malthus's acute and thorough book on the " Principles of 
Population," a work much vilified by many who misun- 
derstood or misconstrued its wise lessons. 

In that part in which lie treats specially of pauperism, 
Malthus has shown plainly — 

" 1. That although these laws may have alleviated in- 
dividual misfortune, yet they have spread the evil over a 
larger surface. 



129 

" 2. That no possible sacrifices of tlie rich could, for 
any time, prevent the recurrence of distress among the 
lower classes. 

" 3. That all systems of this kind tend to create more 
paupers. 

" 4, That the poor laws subject the whole class of the 
common people (laborers) to a set of tyrannical laws. 

" 5. That if these laws had never been enacted, the 
mass of happiness among the laboring class would have 
been greater than it is." 

The Rev. Dr. Thos. Chalmers, the greatest light of the 
Kirk in this century, devoted much of his time and of his 
great powers, to investigating the question of pauperism. 
He was most anxious to save his own country, Scotland, 
from the curse and the blight of the English mode of 
dealing with it. In his essay on " Scotch and English 
Pauperism," he says — " We will confess that we have long 
thought that, in the zeal of regulating against the nuisance 
of public begging, some of the clearest principles, both of 
Nature and of Christianity, have been violated." — "As dis- 
ciples of the New Testament, we cannot but think that, if 
told by our Saviour to give to him that askefh — there 
must be something radically wrong in an attempt, on our 
part, to extinguish that very condition, on which he hath 
made the duty of giving to depend." Again he says — 
" We can venture to affirm, and to the infinite honor of 
the lower orders of society, that all which the rich gwe 
to the poor in jyrivate benevolence, is but a mite and a 
t/rijle when compared with what the poor give to one 
another^ 

In his es&ay on the " Extension of the Church and the 
Extinction of Pauperism," he says — "The right manage- 
ment of poverty {pauperism) is truly the darkest and 



130 

most unsolvable of all problems." — " ]^o power of in- 
quisition can protect a public charity from unfair de- 
mands upon it ; and demands, too, of such weip:;ht and 
plausibility as must be acceded to, and have the effect of 
wasting a large and ever-increasing proportion of the fund, 
on those who are not the rightful and legitimate objects 
of it." After urging his plans for elevating the tone 
and character of the people by moral and religious 
training, he says — " Should this fail, we must prepare our 
minds for a conclusion, far more tremendous than the 
continuance of pauperism, with all its corruptions and 
miseries." — "Should it be found that it owes all its 
inveteracy to a great moral impotency onthe part of man- 
kind, from which no expedient, within the whole compass 
of natural or revealed knowledge, is able to deliver 
them !" 

Perhaps the worst effect of the relief of pauperism by 
th^ State is, that it tends strongly to make pauperism 
hereditary. The children and the grandchildren of 
paupers grow up with sentiments, and under impressions, 
which prevent any persistent effort to raise themselves 
above the condition of a pauper race. Like long-impris- 
oned captives, they are depressed " Till bondage sinks 
their souls to their condition !" 

Poor laws are not exactly the invention of modern 
times, or even of the Middle Ages. The Athenians had 
their poor laws, in perhaps the worst possible form. The 
paupers not only had a voice in appointing the amount of 
relief, but it was partly drawn from the treasury of the 
allies of Athens, of which Athens was the keeper. Pelief 
was so distributed as to offer workmen the strongest in- 
ducement to neglect their private business, in order to 
attend the public assemblies, and their monstrous courts, 



131 

with five or six hundred citizens, as jurors, where every 
man was paid. 

The Koman poor laws toolc another form, perhaps quite 
as objectionable — and, it may be, more costly to the tribu- 
tary provinces. By the Leges Frumentaria, for centuries 
corn was issued gratis to the poor citizens. This bred 
up a crowd of paupers witli political influence in the 
State. For the great body of tlie real laboring class, the 
slaves, derived no relief from these poor laws, either at 
Athens or Rome. In the time of Augustus Csesar, two 
hundred thousand citizens were fed as paupers, in the 
city of Rome. 

In the time of the Byzantine empire, the mass of the 
people of Constantinople recognized as the chief duty of 
the State, the providing the mob with bread and public 
diversions. Panem et Circences. 

In the Middle Ages, when the Church of Rome was at 
the height of its prosperity — it assiduously and politicly 
practised, as among its chief duties, the feeding of the 
the poor, and hospitality to the rich. For these afford- 
ed the best plea and the greatest facilities for its grasp- 
ing acquisition of land, and of all kinds of wealth. 

The French Government, in the last century, and this, 
has often imitated that of Rome. When the mob of 
Paris grew clamorous at the high price of bread, the au- 
thorities, at times, compelled the bakers to sell bread 
below cost, reimbursing them for their losses, at the cost 
of the rest of France. They did not fear the mobs of 
the smaller cities, or of the country at large. Half loaves 
must do for them. 

Hospitals and pensions, furnished by the State, for 
soldiers and seamen, are not charities. They are in part 
payment of debt, for service done. 



132 



XLIII. 



We have already dwelt somewliat on the provision 
Nature lias made for the spontaneous diffusion of knowl- 
edge and the arts throughout society. 

It is obvious that it is just as natural and obligatory on 
parents to teacli and train their children ; as to feed, 
clothe, and shelter them. Religious people (and as they 
form no small part of most communities, and have rights 
and duties, like ourselves, we are bound to consider them, 
however completely we may be without God in the 
world) — all these will agree that the education and train- 
ing of their children are duties imposed upon them by 
their Creator, and rights given exclusively to them. And 
we know that this conviction has, practically, operated 
so actively on parents, even those who make little profes- 
sion of devotion, and even in semi-barbarous regions; 
that parents either taught their children their own arts, 
or, perhaps, more often induced some other persons to 
undertake their instruction in theirs. From this custom 
sprung up the universally known system of apprentice- 
ship, from the French verb, ctpprendre^ to learn or 
teach. 

This system of apprenticeship to numberless trades 
and professions was really suggested by Nature ; and has, 
from the remotest times, done more for the education of 
mankind, and for the formation of character, than any 
other system of teaching can possibly do. For most 
parents, having freedom of choice, as to whom they will 
intrust with the teaching and training of their children, 
exercise this right and duty with no little anxiety and 
caution. 



133 

Apprenticeship is by no means limited to handicraft 
trades. It has been found that most of the highest 
branches of professional knowledge and skill are best 
acquired in apprenticeship. There does not appear to be 
any limit to its application. Lord Chancellors have 
begun their careers at the law, as copyists to members of 
the legal profession. Men of the highest scientific 
attainments, as Agassiz, often find it convenient to have 
one or more handy and intelligent youths about them, 
while making their collections, experiments, and re- 
searches. It is now the better opinion that the most 
learned and scientific professions and pursuits, as law, 
medicine, civil engineering, chemistry, natural history, 
etc., are best taught to apprentices. 

From the first dawn of letters and science, a class of 
men have appeared among every intellectual people, 
eager for the acquisition of knowledge, and, many of 
them, not less eager to communicate their knowledge to 
others. These have been the successful teachers of man- 
kind. 

An utterly unrestricted method of teaching, varying 
with the character, views, and objects of those who 
undertook to teach ; from that of the pedagogue, who 
would never let his pupil look off of his book, to observe 
anything beyond its pages, to that of Pestalozzi, who 
sought to make his pupils familiar with things in the 
concrete, by object lessons, leaving abstract ideas to 
come later (a theory long before advocated by Milton) ; 
or that of the tutor, who took his pupils to travel, to 
show them the busy and various world, and master living 
tongues — all these have their merits ; and they afford 
opj)ortunities of comjDaring and contrasting the results of 
different systems. And doubtless the best systems now 

7* 



134 

in vogue are the result of this perfect freedom in the pro- 
fession of teaching. Out of these contrarieties may be 
elicited the best modes of instruction. 'No one method 
is the best. Much depends on the character and idiosyn- 
crasy of the pupil to be taught. Nature has given the 
right, and imposed the duty, on parents and guardians ; 
and the responsibility of choosing the method of educa- 
tion lies with them alone. 

It is admitted that the people of Attica were the most 
intellectual branch of the most intellectual race of 
antiquity, the Greeks. Who was it that, discarding mere 
speculative inquiries into Nature's mysteries, first effect- 
ually taught the Athenians to look into their own minds, 
and search there for reasonable convictions as to human 
character and principles of conduct, in private and public 
affairs of daily occurrence ? Who taught men their real 
ignorance in matters which they thouglit they under- 
stood, by leading tliem to define correctly that which they 
aimed at ; and furnished them with a logical method of 
making a sure and real intellectual progress? It was 
Socrates ! 

His method of instruction was apparently the most 
immethodical ; consisting of question and answer in 
ordinary casual conversation. But, in reahty, it was 
perfect for its purpose ; to teach men their own ignorance 
and want of logic. Without any motive of personal 
ambition, or of gain — for he did not seek office, and 
refused all fees from his pupils— he devoted a long life, 
most industriously, but unostentatiously, to opening the 
minds of the young Athenians of all classes, to the true 
paths of intellectual and moral progress. 

When he was about seventy years old, the corrupt 
Athenian democracy, on the false plea that he brought 



135 

the religion of the State iuto discredit, and perverted the 
youth of Athens by his teaching, put him to death, con- 
demning liim to take poison ; which he swallowed with 
as much philosophic composure as he had lived. It is 
impossible to say how much Plato, Xenophon, and the 
many others of Socrates's world-renowned pupils, in- 
cluding Aristotle in the next generation, owed to his 
training in the art of using their minds. And these 
were the great teachers of future ages, and of other 
countries, far beyond Greece, in her best days. 
■ From the time of Socrates to this day, so many men of 
more than ordinary abilities and attainments have zeal- 
ously given their lives, in many cases, from purely disin- 
terested motives, to the instruction of the ignorant, that 
it would be impossible to name them, or even to estimate 
their number. 

There has been no civilized country, in either ancient 
or modern times, but especially since the beginning of 
the Christian era, which could not furnish a long list of 
these independent and voluntary teachers ; who have 
spent their lives battling against ignorance, yet often 
frowned upon, and persecuted by the government and 
the people of their own time and country. Nearly all 
we know we owe to these men. The very variety of 
their mental traits, and of their views, secured great free- 
dom of inquiry into men's possible attainments, and full 
opportunities of comparing the various modes of teach- 
ing, and of developing the mental powers in the pursuit 
of every branch of knowledge and skill. 

The persons, who have shown the most self-sacrificing 
zeal in organizing and maintaining the means of educa- 
tion, have almost alwaj^s been among the most devout and 
pious in the community. They devoted their learning, 



136 

their labor, and their money, to promote the instruction of 
the young and the ignorant. These are the people who 
founded schools and colleges. 

But all governments have naturally a violent tendency 
to usurp control over matters foreign to their jurisdic- 
tion. Great powers are, indeed, needed to enable the 
State to protect effectually the rights of individuals. 
But these powers, having no personality, cannot exercise 
themselves; but must be exercised by individual men. 
There at once springs up a keen and fierce struggle be- 
tween individuals, to act for the State, and exercise some 
of its functions. The chief labor of those who get into 
office, is to keep themselves in place. And they look 
around, in every direction, to win supporters, and swell 
their patronage and power. The more varied the duties 
assumed by the government, the larger the revenue to be 
expended, the more support can those in office purchase, 
to sustain them there. 

When they see the copious streams of benevolent char- 
ity flowing from thousands of private fountains ; they rec- 
ognize them as a great power, which, in the hands of the 
State, could be applied to manifold uses — and influences, 
for political purposes — and they at once set to work to 
guide these streams into channels of their own choosing. 

From their training as politicians they have learned to 
look u])on every enterprise, at least all expenditure for 
the benefit of the community, or any considerable part of 
it, and any influence accruing therefrom — as properly 
belonging to the State ; and think that it ought to be 
under the jurisdiction of its officials. They, representing 
the State, greedily grasp at it, and appropriate it to their 
own purjDoses. It will at least enlarge their patronage, 
by placing some offices in their gift. 



137 

For the supervision and management of a cliarity, of 
any kind, may afford a partisan a living, and something 
more than a living. Gil Bias's sanctimonious friend, 
Senor Manuel Ordonnes, who had grown rich by taking 
care of the funds of the poor, is not a unique, or even a 
rare character. An adroit statesman, by getting all pos- 
sible posts into his gift, can convert a multitude of men 
of every variety of capacities, into zealous and active par- 
tisans. The finding plausible excuses for multiplying 
offices in the gift of the State, serves a great purpose with 
the average statesman. 

This propensity has shown itself of late years, in many 
countries. Whole professions and classes, employed as 
administrators of charities, agents for the enforcement of 
complicated sanitary regulations, a multitude of teachers 
in State schools, being gradually drawn into the ranks of 
the paid agents of the State — on ingenious and plausible 
grounds — vastly swelling the patronage of rulers. " The 
cry is, ' Still they come !' " 



XLIY. 

We must not pass over so cursorily that monstrous and 
growing usurpation, the claim that it is the right of the 
State to control education. This is perhaps the grossest 
usurpation that threatens true liberty. 

If the State has a right to control the education of the 
young, and have them taught what the State deems it 
necessary that they should know, then a Roman Catho- 
lic State has this right ; a State in which the Greek 
Church is by law established has it. So of a Mohamme- 
dan State — and a Buddhist State also — any State, indeed. 



138 

with a religion established by law ; and equally, any 
State which, like that of France, in 1792, proclaims that 
there is neither God nor Devil — ^neither heaven nor hell 
— no hereafter. Even now, France approaches to these 
dogmas. 

All thoughtful and pious parents recognize it as a God- 
given right, and a God-imposed duty, to provide for the 
training of their children according to their own lights 
and convictions — and that the mere intellectual, cannot 
be safely se23arated from the moral and religious training 
of the young. It is more especially the duty of every 
body of believers organized for worsliip, to charge itself, 
through its influence with 23arents, with providing schools 
for their children. J^othing short of gross immorality, 
or criminality in the parents, or abandonment of their off- 
spring, can justify the State in usurping, from the parent, 
this sacred right ; and then, not on the ground of control 
over education, but only the right to guard against nuis- 
ances. 

The question as to State education is a living issue, sur- 
rounding, pressing upon us. It is a vital attack on true 
liberty. Shall the State usurp the right of thinking for 
private persons, on a matter that concerns their domestic 
life and duties ? It has already destroyed most of the pri- 
vate schools, even those of the best class. It aims at root- 
ing them out utterly. 

Here, in Ontario, the largest province in Canada, there 
are what are called "separate schools." That is, the 
Homan Catholics claimed, and, not without much opposi- 
tion, their claim was admitted, that if they were to be 
taxed for the support of public schools, what they paid 
should not go to the maintenance of these schools, but to 
the supj)ort of Homan Catholic schools for their children, 



139 

without their running the risk, or rather, the certainty, 
of their money being perverted to uses hostile to their 
faith. 

But there are a class of people, we know not how nu- 
merous, urging the abolition of these " separate schools," 
as distinguished from tlie common schools of the country. 
And not a few of these people would make it compulsory 
on parents, not only to pay for the support of these com- 
mon schools, but to send their children there. This is 
the direct tendency of the claim of the State to control 
education. 

I feel myself to be not unfit to discuss this matter im- 
partially, inasmuch as I am not a Roman Catholic, and 
am, perhaps, as well informed as to the aberrations of the 
Church of Rome from pure and unadulterated Christian 
doctrine, as any of these partisan, or fanatic, or latitudi- 
narian adherents of the flexible Christianity in vogue at 
this day ; and far better than any of the unbelievers and 
agnostics who profess to feel an intense interest in the 
education of the youth of the country; and many of 
whom thrust themselves, or seek to thrust themselves, 
into office, as inspectors of the public schools. 

1 believe the Church of Rome to be a Christian, but, 
on not a few points, an erring Church. But it has not 
erred so widely as some Christian sects which seem to 
have condensed their theology into one great, compact 
dogma — " The further from Rome, the nearer to truth 
and to God !" 

On one point it has not erred, like many of these self- 
styled Protestants, but has wisely refused to intrust the 
teaching of its children to any one not selected or approved 
of by itself. It fully recognizes, in theory at least, the 
great truth, that the education of the intellect cannot be 



140 

safely separated from moral training and religious instruc- 
tion ; and that nothing is more important in education 
than the associations and companionship which the school 
brings with it ; and moreover, that it is difficult, often 
impossible, to limit, to his special branch, the influence 
which an able and skillful teacher may acquire over the 
minds of his pupils. 

Not a few of the teachers and inspectors of these pub- 
lic schools are agnostics, and advocates of compulsory at- 
tendance of all children on these schools. Of the compe- 
tency of the staff of this public school system we will give 
a late and striking illustration. The books to be used in 
the school are appointed by Government authority. One 
book that might be used was Scott's " Marmion "; but the 
Minister of Education (Ontario has such an official) lately 
found out that it was an immoral book ; and put Sir 
Walter's best narrative poem in his Index Expurgatorius. 
Our reader may discover for himself where the literary 
heresy lies. 

Let us suppose that we, who are not Roman Catholics, 
were to find ourselves, from the result of a great migra- 
tion from Ireland — no impossible event — surrounded here 
by a greatly preponderating population of adherents to 
the Roman Church, carrying every election, filling every 
office, and the public schools with Roman Catholic mas- 
ters and mistresses ; making by law these " separate 
schools," now complained of by the fanatic advocates of 
State education, the public schools of the country, and 
enacting compulsory attendance on them by all school 
children ! "Would these grumblers against the present 
"separate schools" .object to this measure? On what 
grounds could they do it? Some of these would-be 
reformers call themselves Protestant Christians. They 



141 

would be apt to become protestants against State edu- 
cation. 

Judicious parents know that nothing in education is 
more important than the companionship schools bring 
with them ; and not seldom remove their children from a 
particular school, not on account of the teaching, but the 
associations. 

As to the course of instruction, we must repeat that it 
is especially the duty of all religious organizations to pro- 
vide schools for the education of the young ; and to exert 
their influence with parents to send their children to 
schools where the instruction of the intellect is united 
with, at least not divorced from, moral and religious train- 
ing. 

Which are the countries, that, of late days, have made 
the most strenuous efforts to control education? And 
what, there, has been the result ? 

ISIorth Gennany, or rather Prussia, took the lead. 
There are many curious facts in the spiritual and intel- 
lectual history of ISTorth Germany. Charlemagne waged 
long wars of conquest and extermination, nominally to 
Christianize the heathen there ; but that work was really 
accomplished, before and after his time, by many eminent 
missionaries, famous in the annals of the Church in the 
Dark Ages — of whom St. Boniface, an Englishman by 
birth, and, in his old age, a martyr to his zeal, was one of 
the earliest, and the most famous of them all. 

In the thirteentli century, the " Teutonic Knights," a re- 
ligious military order, originating in the Crusades, imitated 
and revived Mohammed's and Charlemagne's process of 
conversion, by making war on the heathen inhabitants on 
the southern shores of the Baltic. They made great con- 
quests, and became the sovereigns of Prussia, North 



142 

Germany was now Christianized, or at least, Bomanized, 
until the time of Luther ; who, with Melancthon and 
others, purified the Church of some of its abuses, and 
l^orth Germany became the eminently Protestant coun- 
try. 

But the Prussian State, which had become a kingdom, 
assumed in this present century, the control of education. 
The Lutheran Church and the Reformed Church in that 
kingdom, were by the sovereign authority of a most de- 
vout monarch, amalgamated into one body, apparently, 
with little difficulty ; which fact proves that both of 
these religious organizations were dead at heart. Neither 
Luther nor Swinglius would recognize or acknowledge 
this re-hash, dished up out of the effete remnants of these 
two churches. 

The intellectual and spiritual revolutions of North 
Germany continue to be singular. The human mind 
there seems to be too restlessly inquiring to hold on to 
any fixed belief. Now, in Prussia, and elsewhere in the 
German Empire, a large portion of the children bora are 
never christened. A large portion of the people never 
enter a place of worshi]^ ; and, dying, are buried without 
the remotest allusion to the possibility that their past life 
here, ma}^ be accompanied and followed by any responsi- 
bility in a life hereafter. This great change, since 
Luther's day, is due chiefly to " State education." 
Under its training the people have become too philo- 
sophical and scientific to tolerate any superstition of the 
Dark Ages. 

As to State education in France, the French, under 
the training of their pliilosophers, the chief of whom was 
the witty and profligate Yoltaire, threw ofl their Chris- 
tianity more than a century ago ; and, after that, in the 



143 

orgies of their bloodiest of revolutions, they publicly 
deified the goddess of liberty, making her second only to 
St. Guillotine. Their system of State education, as now 
organized, is zealously sustaining their freedom from su- 
perstition by denouncing Christianity, and by persecut- 
ing the remnant of the Church yet liu'^ering there. 

England, entering later than Prussia, on the usurpation 
by the State of tlie control of education, has, through 
some surviving counter-influences, not yet got so far in 
remoulding the minds and hearts of those she would 
instruct. Accidentally, the clergy of the Church of 
England, and those of the Scotch Kirk, have been able 
to retain much influence over education, even in the 
State schools. But this is only tolerated as yet. Both 
literature and science are there making great progress in 
unbelief and agnosticism, and the full effect is yet to be 
seen. 

In the United States the strong tendency is to enforce 
education by tlie Government with a careful exclusion of 
religious instruction. It is held there tliat, as universal 
manhood suffrage is the sole basis of government, every 
voter should be educated at the cost of the State. But in 
fact, at least in law, the Federal Government has no 
rights or duties as to State education ; for that, if it rests 
anywhere, lies with the individual States. 

If education, which is- very general in the United 
States, has had any effect on crime, it has been simply to 
increase it. The ci-iminals are far better educated than 
they used to be, and crime is more rife than it formerly 
was. 

In Canada, the Government has entered fully on the 
assumed duty of State education. We already see some 
of the effects ; an increasing desire to make attendance 



144 ^ 

on the public schools compulsory, indicating a hostility to 
private teaching, and the wish and aim to abolish private 
schools. The pretense of teaching the elements of all 
the sciences in the State schools, where children acquire 
the names of abstruse branches of learning and science, 
from teachers, themselves not well-grounded in the 
rudiments. Children elaborately drilled in new-fangled 
systems of grammar by masters, and yet more by mis- 
tresses, of no general reading beyond the daily paper, and 
unable to speak pure English. An immense stress laid 
on arithmetic, so that the multiplication table takes the 
place occupied, among Christians, by the Apostles' Creed. 
After a year's training at these schools, a marked deteri- 
oration can be seen in the manners and morals of children 
who have been Avell brought up elsewhere. The political 
patronage this system of public schools affords is of 
important use, and perhaps its chief recommendation, to 
politicians. 

It so happened that, when a very young man, I was, 
for a time, thrown much with a physician, a man of 
much ability, and of considerable attainments in pliysical 
science. He had practised for several years in one place, 
got dissatisfied there, and was seeking another field in 
which to follow his profession. I knew little of his his- 
tory, nor why he left his former place of residence. 

I was much struck with his extensive knowledge on 
many points, all bearing on physical science. His mind 
was acute, vigorous, and well stored, and I probably 
learned not a few things in physics from him. But I 
was yet more deeply impressed, on finding that to all 
moral inquiries, to all spiritual impressions that acute 
mind was callous, and had remained blank. He seemed 
to have but one accidental moral quality — frankness. It 



145 

was as if one lobe of his brain, devoted exclusively to 
physical research and material impressions, had been de- 
veloped to full health and vigor ; while the other lobe, 
which should have been employed on moral inquiries and 
spiritual experiences, had been purposely kept idle, and 
had become shriveled and perished. These impressions 
have stuck to me, and further opportunities of similar 
observations have convinced me that the assiduous exclu- 
sive pursuit of physical research, gradually withers the 
moral and spiritual side of a man's nature. 

I never knew but one man who, entering very early on 
the pursuit of the physical sciences, and long following 
up his researches with enthusiasm, actually passed 
through physics into metaphysics, and so to moral in- 
quiries ; yet he did not abandon physics. I recognized 
him to be, through some unknown influence, an excep- 
tion to the result of the exclusive study of physical 
science. 

Now to apply this. The army of sclioolmasters in 
the pay of the State find it easier to exhibit a marked 
and measured progress with their scholars, in the exact 
and materialistic studies, than in those which bear on 
moral, and, possibly, on spiritual matters. As the 
employment and promotion of these teachers depends on 
the exhibit they can make of proficiency in their pupils, 
they lay the greatest stress on the first class of studies, 
which admit more readily of being measured, and they 
undervalue and neglect the other class. 

Have you ever remarked the keen zest with which 
students of medicine, and especially of anatomy, pursue 
their studies, and compared them, in that respect, with 
students of language, law, or divinity ? Physical science 
has a sort of fascination for man. He is more prone 



146 

to the physical and animal side than to the moral and 
spiritual side of his nature. Many people, all pious per- 
sons, who are aware of this tendency, are anxious to 
counteract it. 

The claim of the State to control education necessarily 
becomes an ever-growing exaction on the community. 
It weakens parental responsibility, loosens filial ties, 
fosters the presumption of yonth, and unfits a large 
portion for their future occupations. It genei'ates two 
classes of people who are always urging it on to extrava- 
gance. 1st. A vast array of State teachers, who, to exalt 
their own importance as State officials, urge the extension 
of the course of instruction. I have known it made to 
embrace music, French, and German. 2d. A numerous 
class of j)arents, who would have their children obtain as 
complete an education -as possible, provided it is not at 
their own cost. They would gladly include foreign 
travel on those terms. This claim of the State is a grow- 
ing incubus on society. 

I cannot conceive what right the State has to take my 
earnings to educate even my own childi*en — much less 
my neighbor's children — still less the children of a man 
I never saw, or heard of. It has as much right to take 
my earnings to feed, clothe, and house them ; or to re- 
quire me to take them into my house, and bring them up 
with my own, and as my own. State education neces- 
sarily causes a vast amount of misapplied effort and cost 
for education. For the State has not, like the parent, 
and the private teacher, the means of judging what sort 
of education the pupil is qualified to receive, and how far 
it should be carried ; what it should include, and what 
exclude. 

The State steps in to relieve the parent of a sacred 



147 

duty; to do his thinking for him, and to spend his 
money for him, in teaching his children, and other 
people's children, at his cost. There shall be no more 
ignorance ! the State will give to the young a scientific 
education without any taint of Middle Age superstition. 
We are grieved to see what is the class of men into 
whose hands the guidance of the education of youth 
in the State schools is falling. There are now plenty of 
men of science quite ready, on a good salary, to pervert 
other men's foundations, and inculcate Comtism, Tyndall- 
ism, Huxleyism, Haeckelism. 

To my mind, it is impossible to exhibit a more glaring 
example of folly and presum23tion than that of men 
of learning and science taking their stand in the midst 
of the universe; gazing inquiringly into its wonders, 
which they do not fully see ; making prying research into 
its mysteries, which they cannot unravel ; sounding the 
depths of Nature, which they cannot fathom ; and then 
proclaiming that the human intellect is the highest order 
of intelligence that manifests itself to us. The astron- 
omer vainly striving to map out and measure the extent 
of creation, and at the same time atheistically denying 
the proofs of design, and of a designer; and the ex- 
istence of final causes, and of the causa causarum, the 
author of them ; would be the most ridiculous of objects, 
if, with his teaching and example, demoralizing his race, 
he were not the most deplorable object in I^ature. 

It is likely that if modern States had usurped the con- 
trol of education two, three, or four centuries ago, the 
world would be now far more ignorant than it is. We 
infer this partly from the fact that for some centuries, in 
the Middle Ages, the Church of Eome had almost a 
monopoly of education throughout western Europe, and 



148 

did not use it to advance the intellectual development of 
society. At a later day the Jesuits, a body of eminently 
able and learned men, acquired an almost equal control 
there over education, and, with eminent ability to teach, 
grossly perverted the end of their teaching. 

There are many indications that the ancient Egyptians 
received a national edueation from the priesthood, and 
the Chinese through their philosophers and the Buddhist 
priests. And in both cases this semi-State education 
seems to have stereotyped the national intellect, rendering 
it incapable of progress, only of copying and repeating 
the works and the thoughts of their forefathers. 

It is utterly impossible to foresee what may be the 
ultimate result of the control of education in the hands 
of any government. Nature, assuredly, did not place it 
there. 

One branch of education the State must take charge 
of — military education. But that it should merely 
superimpose on the liberal education private teaching 
has settled on. 

XLY. 

We 'have dwelt long on the usurpation by the State of 
the control over charities and education ; not because they 
are the only, but the chief usurpations, and those which as 
yet they have pushed farthest. 

We will speak of some other usurpations of the -State. 
For instance, men have an exclusive right to make their 
own contracts. 

In the best-ordered community, individuals will have 
disputes with each other as to their rights. The State, in 
the fulfillment of one of its two great duties, the admin- 



149 

istration of justice, alone can decide the questions between 
them. It must enact rules and establish courts for 
examining into and deciding these controversies between 
the parties, many of them sjDringing out of matters of 
contract. 

Tlie State is often called upon to define rights in its 
legislation and to adjudge them in its courts. But this 
is quite a different thing from creating rights, or granting 
them, or taking them away. The State has not a shadow 
of claim to alter contracts made between individuals ; on 
the contrary it is one of its most important duties to 
enforce their fulfillment, unless it can be shown that they 
are immoral, illegal, or fraudulent. And then the State 
is bound to place the parties as nearly as practicable in 
the same condition they were in as to each other before 
the contract was made. 

In cases which turn on title or right by long possession, 
or claims after the lapse of long time, as under the statute 
of limitations, or under the statute of frauds ; the State 
merely refuses to interfere and investigate a claim after 
the claimant has so long slept upon his rights, or neglected 
the proofs of his claim. 

Yet many States have often violated this right of men 
to make their own contracts, as the British Government 
has, we think, of late repeatedly done most grossly, and 
on a large scale, merely on grounds of temporary political 
expediency. 

So in the United States several temporary Bankrupt 
Acts have been enacted, under the influence and pressure 
of the heavily indebted classes, who sought to be relieved 
of their contract obligations, and set free to embark on 
new financial speculations. This was making very free 
with contracts. 



150 

Another State usurpation has taken a peculiar shape. 
The right which a man has to the protection of the State 
does not deprive him of the right to protect himself. 
He has not surrendered the one to receive the other. 

For instance, a traveller, if told on his journey that the 
road ahead is beset by a highwayman, is in no way bound 
to change his route or apply for police protection. He 
has a right to take his chance in protecting himself. So 
if a man be told that a burglary will be attempted on 
his house, he has a right to hold his tongue and defend 
his house as his castle. In both these cases he is serving 
the public. He is making crime dangerous to the crim- 
inal without the unreliable aid of a jury. Legislation 
against self-defense tends strongly to emasculate a people. 
Fools must have made up the bulk of the parliamentary 
body which enacted laws making it a penal offense to 
wear secret weapons. Tiie proof of their folly is this : 
the law only disarms the law-abiding, leaving them un- 
armed before the law-defying. At the most, the carrying 
of concealed weapons may be under some circumstances 
an indication of criminal designs. 

Another usurpation which many States have been, and 
still are guilty of, is the prohibiting people from leaving 
the country. This is surely a gross infringement on 
natural liberty. For a free man has a right to go where 
he pleases, provided he is not leaving at home unfulfilled 
obligations ; or in time of war going into the enemy's 
country. For this is a sort of desertion to the enemy. 

No State has a right to grant monopolies, for they are 
oppressive outrages on men's natural rights. Yet most 
States have granted them to individuals and companies, 
or have themselves usurped and exercised them. Of 
late the latter are most frequent, and may be made the 



151 

most oppressive. But what is a monopoly ? It assumes 
a variety of sliapes. The exclusive right to import into 
the country a particular class of goods, or to manufacture, 
or to deal in them, is a monopoly. So the exclusive right 
to do particular acts, or to render certain services not 
necessarily done by State agents. Thus we believe that 
in some States in Europe the importation and trade in 
tobacco is a government monopoly. And in British 
India the trade in opium seems to be a monopoly of the 
Government. 

But if a joerson contrives some new machine or tech- 
nical process of doing some useful work, or if an author 
compose a book, the j)atent granted to the former and 
the copyright granted to the latter are not monopolies. 
They are simply certificates from the State that the 
article or process patented and the book copyrighted, are 
the fruits of the labor and ingenuity of particular persons. 
And men have by nature an exclusive right in their own 
labor and ingenuity, and in the fruits of them, if they 
choose to reserve them for their own use and profit. The 
State should protect this right as all others. Any other 
man is at liberty to invent a better machine or process 
for doing the same work done by the patented machine 
or process, or to compose a better book than the one 
copyrighted, on the same subject, and thus possibly 
deprive them of their value on sale. The only restriction 
laid on the later inventor or author is, he must not avail 
himself of the invention or composition of his prede- 
cessor. He must not build on another nian's founda- 
tions. 

So the State may jusHj^ exact from members of such 
professions as expect to live by their practice among the 
community, some security that they are what they pro- 



152 

fess to be. Thus, the legal profession are in some degree 
officers of tlie courts in which they practise ; and are 
not admitted to practise tliere until they have certificates 
from some appointed schools of law, that they have gone 
through a certain course of studies, and stood a satisfac- 
tory examination in them. So with those who seek to 
practise medicine. The State exacts from them proofs 
that they have qualified themselves for this profession, 
as certified by the diploma of some authorized school of 
medicine. And so with all professions which require a 
training in high and difficult branches of science and 
art — as apothecaries, chemists, surveyors, and engineers. 
For many persons on the lookout for the means of living, 
are quite ready to assume any of these professions with 
little or no qualification for them, trusting for success to 
their plausible pretensions, and the gullibility of the bulk 
of the community. The State is bound to take these pre- 
cautions, and exact proofs of competency in professional 
men, who seek to live by the practice of callings which 
imply elaborate and somewhat occult preparation for 
their mastery. This is necessary for the protection of 
the ignorant and the incautious ; and is not granting a 
monopoly, for it gi-ants no exclusive right, not limiting 
the number of professional men. 

It may seem strange to some peoj^le, who have all tlieir 
lives found an institution of the State, a very great con- 
venience to them ; and learned to look ujDon it as a neces- 
sary of civilized life, to hear me call it a monopoly, and a 
State monopoly — I mean the post-office. Yet when we 
trace its origin and history, we find that it has become a 
monopoly ; and more than that, the fruitful motlier of 
mono23olies — at least, its extreme convenience has sug- 
gested, and is suggesting to States, others of a most dan- 
gerous and usurping character. 



153 

In very early times States with wide territories soon 
found that they needed an establisliinent of couriers, 
posted at many points, for the speedy conveyance of 
orders from, and intelhgence to, the seat of government. 
The earliest system of j)Ost we know of was that in the 
Persian Empire. The Itinerariuin Antonini implies a 
similar provision in the Roman Empire. All extensive 
States doubtless followed these examples. 

Merchants and others soon found out that it would be 
more than convenient for their correspondence to be car- 
ried by the State's courier ; and court favor or bribery got 
their letters so conveyed. The State, too, found out that this 
carriage of private correspondence might be made a source 
of revenue. The post-office gradually became a depart- 
ment of the government, and to make it more profitable, 
private persons were prohibited, under heavy penalties, 
making a business of conveying any correspondence. 
That service was made a monopoly of the State. Doubt- 
less, besides the revenue, the po"wer of examining polit- 
ical correspoD deuce was a motive. We have known this 
done. 

In England the post-office was long a source of great 
revenue, and still is, although latterly the policy has been 
to cheapen postage for the convenience of the people. 

In the United States, on the other hand, the post-office 
never became a source of revenue, but until very lately 
was a burden, costing the country seven or eight millions 
annually. Still the postage was cheapened, that the Gov- 
ernment might boast of performing the great duty of carry 
ing to every man his letters, and yet more his newspapers, 
cheaply, to keep him educated and informed on public 
affairs, at the least "possible cost. Yet it held on to its 
monopoly, laying heavy penalties on any who interfered 



154 

with it. Now this monopoly is evidently an artificial 
system, preventing matters taking their natural course; 
compelling some people to pay the greater part of 
other s postage in the shape of millions raised to pay 
the deficiencies and losses of the post-office. If the 
conveyance of letters were free to common carriers, snch 
as the express companies, the cost of postage in cities and 
towns would be yet lower than it is. People who live in 
out-of-the-way places would have to pay more for their 
correspondence, as they should. If the post-office had 
not been one of the especial prerogatives (monopolies) 
of the United States, the people would have saved 
millions annually, and besides have escaped the robberies 
of the Star Route contractors. But the Government 
liolds on to this monopoly, at any cost, for it gives it the 
control and patronage of 60,000 office-holders. It seeks, 
and is urged to seize on other monopolies, as to become 
the sole common carrier and intelligence]*, by monopoliz- 
ing the railroads and telegraph lines. Doing these parts 
of the people's business for them will give the Govern- 
ment the patronage of another array of office-holders. 

For the great convenience and apparent success of this 
post-office monopoly has set some wild ideas afloat 
through the country. It is furnishing stepping-stones 
for wild projects of Government monopoly. If it can so 
well convey every man's correspondence for him, why 
should it not perform many other services for tlie people. 
There are men in the country widely listened to, by mul- 
titudes who have votes, if they have nothing else, urging 
that tlie Government should a23propriate the railroads, 
telegraph lines, the education of all children, the regula- 
tion of labor and wages, the abolition of patents and copy- 
right, the acquisition and the ownership of j^coal mines, 



155 

iron, gold, and silver mines, and petroleum weUs — in 
order to attend better to the people's welfare.' To crown 
all, the Government is strongly urged to make itself the 
sole landholder in the confederation ; or at least to confis- 
cate all net rent, for the equal benefit of all the people. 

The smaller monopolies of former days dwindle into 
nothingness before these splendid examples of State 
usurpation about to be carried into operation. 



XLYI. 

The searching ingenuity of therjc reformers has sug- 
gested another line of usurpation to the United States 
Government. 

A State lias a right to enact sanitary laws, and to abate 
nuisances. This is a part of the administration of jus- 
tice. The creating of nuisances and neglect of sanitary 
precautions are wrongs to other people. 

In what way does the need of sanitary laws arise ? Di- 
rectly out of the habits and pursuits of human society. 
Animals in a state of nature, undisturbed by men, are 
healthy, cleanly, and content, under the guidance of their 
instincts. Men, under the guidance of their reason, are 
discontented with their state, constantly striving to better 
their condition, and often altering it for the worse. They 
become filthy in their habits and surroundings, sickly 
from privations and exposure to causes generating dis- 
ease, and become sources of contagion in their persons, 
and yet more in their homes, to their neighbors ; especially 
where trade and manufactures draw many together, and 
accumulate perishable materials at one point. 

The offensive refuse collected in and around the winter 



156 

huts of the Esquimaux, the leavings of a long winter of 
uncleanly living, does not exceed that which would 
gather in and about many places where population is 
crowded together by traffic and industry. What would 
be the condition of the tramp-houses, in large European 
cities, or of the tenements in those American ports, where 
hundreds of emigrants, whole colonies of Irish and other 
foreigners, are crowded together — hundreds under one 
roof, two or more families at times in one room — but for 
the enforcement of sanitary regulations as to ventilation, 
drainage, removal of filth, and of the remnants of un- 
wholesome trades? 

But the sanitary regulations should be limited to neces- 
sary sanitary objects. Tiiey may be, and are easily per- 
verted to intrusive, intermeddling, oppressive ends ; and 
become nuisances themselves, doing far more harm than 
good, violating far higher laws. Many examples might 
be given of this. I will content myself with one, which 
I know will meet with opposition. ]^o doubt vaccination 
is a safeguard against small-pox. A State may well make 
it the prerequisite to entering its service in any capacity, 
and thus familiarize people with it as a wise precaution. 
But it is an infringement on natural liberty to compel 
anybody to submit to vaccination. 

Some of the new reformers in the United States have 
taken sanitary laws under their special patronage. One 
of thqm in his advice to the Government, not unsolicited, 
says : " The present system under which Boards of Health 
act is not effectual, as is seen by the state of the public 
health in all great cities." "I recommend the establish- 
ment by Congress of efficient Boards of Health — under a 
comprehensive system and policy." 

This is coolly proposing to Congress to abolish the 



157 

Boards of Health established by the States, and the mu- 
nicipalities of cities, as ineffective ; and to substitute for 
thein, bj the authority of the Federal Government, a 
national Board — with more arms than Briarens, one 
reaching to every populous or sickly locality in the con- 
federacy, to take sanitary matters under its control there. 

Such a usurpation and concentration of power would 
be a greater evil than a visit from the plague or the chol- 
era. What an intermeddling and costly nuisance would 
this prying, domineering agency become to the privacy 
of every home ! How incompatible with freedom ! How 
utterly foreign to what the United States Government 
and the State governments profess to be ! 

All these reformers utterly forget that the United 
States profess to be a confederation of States ; or rather, 
they aim at destroying more completely than has yet been 
done, the Federal character of the United States Govern- 
ment ; and convert the States, the creators of the confed- 
eration, into the provinces of a sovereign concentrated 
power. 

We have had occasion to speak of the theory of "emi- 
nent domain." Have they forgotten that, even under 
that theor3% "eminent domain" does not vest in the 
United States — unless in the Southern States which were 
conquered iu the War of Secession ? Even there, in all 
cases of escheats, the escheated land goes to the State. 
The United States Government cannot grant a charter 
for a railroad from Buffalo to ]N"ew York City, or from 
Pittsburg to Philadelphia, or from Springfield to Boston 
— for Massachusetts, N'ew York, and Pennsylvania claim 
to be States, and that "eminent domain" lies in them. 
They hold that the United States Government is only a 
Federal Government for certain purposes specified in the 



158 

Constitution. Bnt these reformers would sweep away 
wliat remnants of this Constitution are yet left. It never 
was anything more than a treaty between States ; and 
now it is but a broken treaty ; and they would have it 
utterly forgotten. 

XLYll. 

In these latter times there has been a great crop of 
these dreamy, visionary, political theorists ; utterly dissat- 
islied with the social and political institutions of their 
time and country ; indeed, burning with zeal to reform 
and revolutionize the world, 

Witliout going into further details of their conflicting 
views and teachings, we cannot help commenting on one 
point in which they all resemble each other : the indica- 
tions of an astounding ignorance of human nature. 

They all look forward to radical changes in the traits 
of mankind— a perfectibility, the result of a gradual or 
sudden development, by education or ti-aining, to larger 
and higher views, the effect of their enlightening in- 
structions. Humanity, according to them, is made of 
wax or plastic clay, to be moulded into new forms. And 
each of these dreamers hopes to be the creative artist 
who will furnish the mould to turn out the desired model. 
Or, rather, each of them imagines himself a great 
alchymist, whose Avondrous art can convert the animal 
man into what he never yet has been, nor was meant to 
be. Do not these people know that the only approach 
men have ever made to perfection, has been to the per- 
fection of rascality ? 

Although little of a scholar, and less of a linguist, 1 
know enough of the history of the languages and litera- 



159 

tures of several of the most intellectual races of men, to 
^atlier from them facts that seem to me to cut off all 
hope of a great intellectual improvement of our race at 
any future time, by that education and high training, to 
the accomplishment of which the most radical of our 
revolutionary reformers would devote the confiscated 
rental of all the land in the United States. 

If 3'ou take in chronological order the literature and 

. language of the Greeks, the Romans, the Italians, the 
English, the French, and the Germans, you will find that 
each of these literatures, tongues, and peoples, had a 
period of genius, of invention, and of originality, during 
which the language and race are rising to their highest 
point of development. This is followed by a period of 
criticism and scholarship, in which the race strive to 
rival their predecessors, but never rise to their level. 
This is followed usually by a long period of mediocrity. 
There may be a renaissance., but that regeneration always 
betrays a degeneration. Literature may be, and is, more 
widely cultivated ; but the three stages of the national 
mind — originality and invention, criticism and imitative 

, scholarsliip, and mediocrity and decline — never reverse 
their order. There seems to be no necessary connection 
between this /brmi^/a of intellectual rise, progress, and 
decline, and that of the mechanical and useful arts of 
practical Hfe and business. Kor does the use of steam, 
electricity, the telescope, the microscope, the solar 
spectrum, however much they may add to our knowledge 
and powers, produce any enlargement of the faculties of 
our minds, or make men toiser than they were. 

A remarkable example of this, as to language, is shown 
in the late effort of a body of learned men to amend the 
English version of the Scriptures of 1611. They, in 



160 

many parts, violated the idioms and ruined the melody 
and pathos of the older version. This was owing to that 
version having been made by great masters of the English 
tongue when it had attained its perfection — when Shakes- 
peare was writing his last plays, and Lord Bacon his 
short but inimitable " Essays, Moral, Economical, and 
Political." For then the language had attained its great- 
est power of expressing the thoughts, sentiments, pas- 
sions, and characteristics of men in a perfection it has 
never rivaled since. We may learn from this experi- 
ment that the purity and force of our tongue has been 
largely preserved to us through nearly three centuries of 
eventful changes, by this very old version they sought to 
amend. They may have rid the Scriptures of one or two 
interpolations, as that in 1st John, chapter 5, v. 7 ; but 
they have made many other doubtful, if not false, cor- 
rections. 

From these observations on the rise, progress, and 
decline, in the languages and the literature embodied in 
them, I infer that even for the most intellectual races of 
men there is a limit fixed by Nature, above which they 
cannot rise. Thus the literature in the United States is , 
but a branch from that of England, transplanted in the 
period of mediocrity. Who wildly expects it to produce 
a Shakespeare or Milton ? It would be wonderful if it 
ever became to that of England what the literature of 
Alexandria was to that of Greece. 

Any observant man has opportunities of learning much 
of human nature, by merely closely watching the traits 
and conduct of the crowd of his fellow creatures around 
him. He may, too, if he be a reader, compare those he 
knows personally with what men have been in past times. 
For the history of man's nature, as shown by his 



1(51 

tlioiiglits, words, and actions, under a vast variety of 
conditions, is accessible to us for at least twenty-five 
hundred years. 

We have good reason to believe that wise Socrates 
must have often been forced to converse with fools in 
Athens, the very counterpart, in their nature, of those we 
meet with now. And Aristides, the Just, must have met 
with knaves there, quite equal to any this enlightened 
age can put forward. We have not, from the broadest 
experience within our reach, a shadow of a reason to be- 
lieve that human nature, in its intellect, passions, motives, 
and innate characteristics, has changed within recorded 
time. Men have learned some things formerly unknown. 
In particular countries manners and habits have under- 
gone great changes. Many men, of certain races, have 
learned many things. But the human race is the same 
it was in primitive times. The unjust are unjust still ; 
the filthy are filthy still ; the righteous are righteous 
still. 

Some of these revolutionizing reformers are learned 
men, and, in a certain sense, men of ability, especially to 
make tlie worse appear the better cause. But at the 
bottom they have no more wisdom than " Jack Cade, 
the clothier, who means to dress the commonwealth, 
turn it, and put a new nap on it." " There shall be, in 
England, seven half-penny loaves sold for a penny ; the 
three-hooped pot shall have seven hoops, and I will make 
it felony to drink small beer. All the realm shall be in 
common !" 

Jack Cade, although less learned than these modern re- 
formers, fairly represents them all. There are many 
reasons xdij these extravagances and absurdities should 
not surprise us. They are not new, but only more 



162 

prevalent than in former times. That is the alarming 
fact. 

XLYIII. 

To PEOVB how apt even minds of the highest order are 
to go astray, when dealing with questions on sociology 
and politics, we will state that both Plato and Aristotle 
approved of infanticide, as a means of checking a surplus 
population, or of getting rid of deformed or feeble infants. 
Plato, if he meant his Republic for a treatise on practical 
politics, if I remember it correctly, shows an utter dis- 
regard for the marital and parental impulses which govern 
men in domestic life ; making his citizens mere imple- 
ments for political purposes ; pawns to be posted on the 
chess-board and moved according to the exigencies of the 
political game. So much for the wisdom of antiquity. 

Coming down to modem times, even to our own day, 
Grote, the banker, the learned historian of Greece, and com- 
mentator on tlie works of Plato and Aristotle, so bewil- 
dered his mind with classical studies, the theories of ancient 
democracy, and with Grecian mythology, that he became 
convinced that all the virtues he found so conspicuously 
wanting in the well-born people of his own time and 
country, he had found in perfection and abundance among 
the oligarchical slaveholders of Greece and Pome. He 
could not perceive, and never suspected, that the barons 
who met at Runnymede to wrest the Great Charter from 
King John, were stancher friends to human rights, 
better democrats, in fact, than his model patriots of 
the picient republics. Grote was thoroughly classic in all 
his convictions. While he scorned all superstitious rever- 
ence for Jehovah or for Christ, he was so crazed with 



163 

classic mythology, that, on his visit to Poestiim, in Italy, 
his feelings of veneration M^ere moved to deep religious 
awe, on viewing the crumbling memorials of the worship 
of Poseidon. {The Temjyle of Neptune yet standing 
there.) 

The gullibility of men was never more strongly dis- 
played, than when, in the last century, Kousseau's elo- 
quent sentimentalities and bold speculations on politics 
and sociology, excited the most intense interest and 
admiration in the reading world of his day. Yet his 
great work, Du Contrat Social, is false in conception, 
and could only serve to unsettle and revolutionize society, 
keeping it in ceaseless ferment and tumult. And while 
he was writing his eloquent and much lauded essay, 
Emile, ou de V Education (a subject he knew nothing 
about), he was sending his bastards, as soon as they were 
born, to the foundling hospital. 

J. Stewart Mill, whose works and teachings have ex- 
ercised wide and powerful influence over the convictions 
of his numberless readers, and beyond them, on others, in 
this generation, teaches the, absurd doctrine, that wages 
should be equalized among workmen, and not propor- 
tioned to their ability and skill. As if Nature had not 
obviously ].n'ovided increase of earnings as the stimulant 
to industry, and to the acquiring of skill ; and narrow 
gains and want, as the penalty for indolence and negli- 
gence. 

Proudhon, an otherwise obscure French author, was 
more successful than abler men ; for he made himself 
famous and popular, by publishing to the world, in three 
words, his great discovery, that La Propriete c'est vol. 
At once a crowd of converts, political agitators, took up 
the cry. "• Property is robbery ! The bounties of Kature 



164 

are given to all mankind ; who are defrauded bj the ex- 
clusive possession of individuals." 

There is no end to absurd propositions like these, each 
backed by the name of some would-be reforming 
philosopher. They serve well to prove the truth of the 
maxim which the wise Swedish Chancellor, Oxenstiera, 
impressed upon his son : " You do not know yet, my son, 
with how little wisdom men are governed." And they 
equally exhibit the truth of Luther's wise saying: 
'•'Human reason is like a drunken clown : help him up 
on one side of his horse, and he topples over on the other." 



XLIX, 

It is not very difficult to exhibit the errors and absurd- 
ities of men, even of learned men, and would-be philos- 
ophers and statesmen. The follies and blunders of 
governments are almost equally open to comment. 

We of English origin, educated in English notions of 
the wisdom and justice of parliamentary legislation, and 
the maintenance thereby of natural and legal rights ; are 
apt to overlook the many gross outrages perpetrated 
systematically, and even in the name of the law, on jbhe 
natural rights of men, under the British Government. 
We will point out some of them. 

1. The operation of the poor laws, especially in the 
eighteenth and early part of this century, was a tyranny, 
in its restrictions on the liberty of the laboring class. 

2. The press-gang method of recruiting for the navy 
was in many cases far worse than the French Govern- 
ment's use of the Bastile, and of the lettres de cachet^ or 
than that of the Russian Government's use of banishment 



165 

to Siberia. For doubtless many persons were justly ar- 
rested and conlined in tlie Bastile ; and many were 
deservedly banislied to Siberia ; but no man ever was 
justly seized upon, perhaps after being knocked down, 
and forced on sliip-board by a press-gang. Charged with 
no crime, in the process of arrest he was treated worse 
than a criminal. 

3. The outrageous usurpation of intermeddling with 
what men deem their God-given right to educate their 
own children — very often children not abandoned or neg- 
lected, but duly cared for, trained, and controlled by 
their parents, 

4. The gross pervei'sion of the duty of administering 
justice, in assuming tlie power to alter and set aside con- 
tracts between individuals, not illegal or immoral, on the 
ground of temporary political expediency. 

These particular wrongs betray ignorance or disregard 
of the alphabet of human rights. To these the British 
Government have added political blunders of the gross- 
est kind. 

5. The absurdity of continuing to hold on to graveyard 
colonies, which have lost their value, or never had any, 
such as Jamaica, Cape Coast Castle, and other points in 
the West Indies, and on the coast of tropical Africa ; 
thus wasting there the people's money, and the lives of 
soldiers, seamen, and officials, in i\ieQe pest-holes. 

6. There is one important matter, in dealing with 
which, the British Parliament have betrayed egregious in- 
capacity. More than forty years ago the princij)les in- 
volved were pretty fully established, in the great contro- 
versy, the political battle on the "Corn Laws." It was 
then settled in Great Britain that it is a natural and es- 
sential part of a man's liberty and rights, to seek, for the 



166 

proceeds of his industry, and the supply of his needs, the 
best market the world affords. 

Parliament at once proceeded to give to all British sub- 
jects in Grreat Britain, as far as possible, the benefit of 
this great natural right. It seenis never to have struck 
tliem, that, if it was a right, British subjects in the colo- 
nies had an equal claim to it as those at home. If there 
had been one statesman among this crowd of politicians, 
he would have pointed out, and convinced them that this 
principle furnished the key to the true colonial policy of 
the Empire. The G-overnment had only to hold one 
convenient port in each colony, declare it a free port, and 
thus secure to every British subject in that colony his 
great natural right of free trade, with every part of the 
Empire at least ; and thus prevent the rise and progress of 
the fallacies of that " protective system " — which is but 
an adroit mode of robbing others for your own benefit. 
It is, perhaps, not yet too late to enter on this colonial 
policy of justice to all. 

The colonies, to raise a revenue, besides honest direct 
taxation, might lay what duties they pleased on foreign 
goods. But every production of any part of the Empire, 
should be free of duty, with tjiis one exception — any ex- 
cisable articles, as spirits and other liquors, should pay a 
duty equal to the excise imposed at the point of importa- 
tion. This colonial policy would make it an Empire 
which need ask no commercial favors from the rest of 
the world. It would add to the resources needed for the 
support of the army and navy, maintained for the defense 
of the whole Empire. 

But the British Parliament were much in the j)redica- 
ment of Luther's drunken clown. In their old colonial 
policy they had attempted to tax unrepresented colonies, 



167 

and for that purpose made use, first of the " Stamp Act," 
then of a monopoly — the East India Company's — of the 
tea trade. Failing in their attempt to tax these colonies, 
they now toppled over on the other side, and j)ermitted 
the other colonies to tax the products of the mother 
country, as foreign goods, which tended to make the 
colonies little worth keeping ; not worth defending at 
any great cost. 

We have spoken only of the blunders of the British 
Government, and, in our ignorance, have not exhausted 
the list. We will now refer to some, not peculiar to 
Great Britain. 

What greater inconsistency in politics and law can be 
pointed out, than that a State should enact and enforce 
severe penalties for trespass on property, for highway 
robber3% burglary, arson, and other assaults on proprietary 
rights ; and yet tolerate the open teaching by demagogues 
and seditious journals, using every art to convince the 
populace, that the appropriation by individuals of part 
of the material gifts of I^atare, is robbing the rest of 
mankind? Tliat this appropriation has generated a con- 
dition of society, and a political organization, so unnat- 
ural and tyrannous, that it should be overthrown at all 
hazards, at any cost — even the wholesale slaughter of 
those who persist in npholding it ! 

Is not the denouncing of property in land and other 
valuable possessions, a direct inciting of the multitude to 
robbery and bloodshed ? And this done by crazy politi- 
cal fanatics, who would not scruple at any outrage, if 
they had the mob at their backs ! Opportunity and 
power only are wanting to prove them monsters of in- 
iquity, only to be rivaled by the heroes who distinguished 
themselves by their atrocities during the " Reign of Ter- 



168 

ror " and during that of tlie " Commune in Paris." How 
dare anj State punish a man for highway robbery, even 
when attended with murder ; yet leave unpunished these 
inciters to and propagators of crime ; these tramplers on 
the legal rights, which the State was established to de- 
fend ? Why does it not strip them of all property, if they 
have any, and make permanent provision for them in jail, 
penitentiary, or mad-house — where their ravings cannot 
unsettle the wholesome convictions of sober-minded men ? 

Is there such a thing as the comity of nations ? When 
two States make treaties, and profess to be on friendly 
terms with each other, it is an outrage, not only against 
the law of nations, but against good morals and common 
decency, for one of them to shelter and defend, as citizens, 
fugitives from the other, who still claim to be citizens of 
one of the provinces of that other State which they have 
left, while they make use of the protection of the country 
which shelters them, as a safe point from which they may 
wage war against the country they have quarrelled with. 
It is an nnheard-of outrage for the sheltering State to 
allow and encourage, by connivance, these men in making 
open preparation for wholesale murder abroad, and openly 
experiment on the efficiency of the devilish contrivances 
they are preparing to accomplish their warlike projects, 
as they call them ; but, in truth, their plans for wholesale 
assassination. 

They avow that, in this enterprise, they have no scru- 
ples. Taking them at their word, we will state an under- 
taking in whicli many of them would gladly embark. 

Some very foolish jDeople, having more money than 
brains, have entered on a project to make a tunnel under 
the channel between England and France. The only 
reason for making it, is, that some squeamish people, in 



169 

crossing the channel, suffer two or three hours' seasick- 
ness. 

As jet, the ministry, taking good military counsel, 
faintly refuse their assent. But JBarbarossa, and some 
other dynamite Irish patriots, hope that the ministry may 
ultimately yield their assent to the project. Then these 
patrons of dynamite war will have the progress of the 
tunnel closely watched ; will ascertain the points at which 
the ceiling of the tunnel is thinnest ; that is, the ]3oints 
of least resistance. 

As soon as the tunnel is finished and in use, Barha- 
rossa, the general of the dynamite army, will send some 
of his most trusty followers to France. There they will 
send off to England, by the tunnel, two or three trunks 
full of dynamite, with an exploding clock in each, well- 
timed to explode the dynamite at or near a point where 
the superincumbent mass of earth and water is lightest ; 
so that, the roof of the tunnel being blown off, the sea- 
water ma}'' rush in, and fill it from Calais to Dover. 

Should there be a few car-loads of English in the tun- 
nel, just then, so much the better. This will be, perhaps, 
the first of many great dynamite victories, while the vic- 
tors keep themselves safe under the protection of the 
United States ; for this army never goes out to battle, 
but fights only with its forlorn hope. Should tliere 
chance to be, also, a few car-loads of French in the tun- 
nel, at the time of the explosion, it is but the chance of 
war. 

When it was first said that the Thugs of India were a 
religious sect, the world was loath to believe in this amal- 
gamation of devotion and murder. It can no longer be 
doubted. The patriots of this day have embraced Thug- 
gee, the most sacred rite of which is secret assassination. 



170 

When one of tliem is convicted of celebrating this sacra- 
ment, lie at once becomes a martyr a,nd a saint to bis 
comrades. 



I WILL here give to those visionary philosophers, who 
would reform the world by making radical revolutions in 
all governments, the real obstacle to the success of their 
theories. 

When we have ascertained, by sad experience, man's 
true nature and character, the crooked and deceptive arts 
by which they seek their ends ; we must perceive that 
their essentially corrupt and unreliable nature renders it 
impossible that the officials of any government can be 
honest enough to be safely trusted with such extraordi- 
nary power and patronage, as is needed to enable the State 
to do for the community, anything that people can do for 
themselves. This is esj)ecially true in governments based 
on universal manhood suffrage, in which demagogues 
take the place of statesmen. It is not that there is no 
truth or honesty among men. But these are very unob- 
trusive qualities, thrust aside by their obtrusive imita- 
tions. The true and pure "Una" of the poet is over- 
looked and neglected, while the false and artful Duessa 
usurps her place. 

For a certain amount of shallowness, a large amount of 
plausibility, and an absence of scruples, are needed to 
make an eminently successful leader of popular opinion. 
These are the qualities to help men into office, in democ- 
racies. And while the people think that these men are 
zealously serving their aims, they are simply seeking their 
own ends, and providing for themselves. That this is the 



171 

result of government by universal suflErage, a few noto- 
rious examples will serve to prove, 

Louis N^apoleon Bonaparte, in his early youth, was 
something more tlian a democrat ; indeed, utterly radical 
and revolutionary in his political demonstrations. In the 
south of Italy he mixed himself up with the most social- 
istic secret societies, which aimed at overturning every 
established institution of civil life. Later in life, after 
some years of dissolute and bohemian living in England, 
his ambition was awakened to the extravagant design of 
restoring the Em])ire in France. 

N^apoleon the First affords the most striking example, 
since Mohammed, of man-worsliip by his fellow men. 
His name was still a word of magic power to rouse and 
bewilder the French nation. His reputed nephew — some 
lovers of scandal assert that he had not one drop of Corsi- 
can blood in his veins; if ambition and duplicity can 
prove kindred, he was doubtless the true nephew of 
'■'•Man Oncle^^ \ however, lie used this magic name with 
great confidence and skill, winning many secret adherents 
among the discontented, especially in the army. The 
former greatness of France under the Empire tempted 
many to listen to his overtures ; and having prepared the 
way by conspiracies, he made two expeditions to France to 
bring about a revolution, by a revolt of the army. In 
the last he fell into the hands of the Government. The 
cautious king, Louis Phillippe^ merely locked him up in 
the old fortress of Ham. He had the luck, or the art, to 
escape from prison, and from France, and back to Eng- 
land, whose free constitutional government he loved so 
dearly. 

The heart of the French nation was not just then 
ailing on the imperial tack, but the other way ; and sud- 



172 

denly a violent democratic revolution overthrew the royal 
government, and every Frencliman became a republican. 
Louis Napoleon hurried back to France, and was at once 
the most enthusiastic democrat on her soil. Availing 
himself skillfully of that word of magic power, he became 
a candidate for the post of President of the Republic, 
was elected, and for two years Liberte, Egalite et 
Fraternite, was his avowed creed. 

1^0 one knows all the intrigues he carried on in these 
two years, for he was skillful in covering his tracks while 
sounding the army, especially the officers of rank, and 
others who had bright visions of France, glorious under 
the Empire. When his preparations were comj)lete, and 
he had collected a large body of corrupted troops around 
Paris, he made his Coup cVetat, and arrested at midnight 
such Field Marshals and Glenerals as he had discovered 
were true to the Republic. When, the next day, the 
people assembled in crowds to learn why the most 
eminent soldiers and patriots had been cast into prison, 
Louis IS^apoleon forgot his Fraternite and made his troops 
fire uj)on his republican brothers. Putting down the 
people, lie proclaimed himself ISTapoleon the Third, Em- 
peror of the French. 

When he had reorganized the civil service and tutored 
the ofl&cials from La Manche to the Pyrenees, he ordered 
a plehescite, a vote by universal manhood suffrage, to be 
taken as to his assumption of the imperial crown. The 
self-appointed Emperor had great skill in wielding this 
formidable weapon, the plebescite. Under tlie vigilant 
eyes and skillful guidance of his tutored ofi&cials, out of 
eight millions of adult Frenchmen, but half a million 
dared to condemn his treasonable overthrow of the Re- 
public, and usurpation of the crown by military violence. 



173 

Seven and a half millions indorsed his assassination, in a 
dark midnight lioiir, of their beloved Republic, and his 
usurpation of iuiperial power. This proves the wonder- 
ful genius of the French for instantly organizing them- 
selves for good or evil. 

What seems more strange to me, their neighbors, the 
moral, liberty-loving English, from the Queen to the 
plowman, after this manifestation of his true character, 
received him with marked favor and approbation. In- 
deed, according to the theory that government should be 
based on universal manhood suffrage, ISTapoleon had 
become, by the plebiscite which he manipulated after his 
Coup d'etat^ the most legitimate ruler that ever came 
into power. We have Abraham Lincoln's assurance, 
that any people have a right to change their government 
at any time. This shows the worth of universal suffrage 
in France. Thanks, however, to the newly organized 
German Empire, the French are once again republicans, 
and half of them at least red republicans. 

The people of the United States are as much devoted 
to universal manhood suffrage as tlie French, perhaps 
more so. I^or do they object to an occasinal coup d'etat. 
A few years ago, an eminent and able man of excellent 
character was elected President, at least he received the 
greatest part of the votes. But the leaders of the people 
then in office, representing a party which had been six- 
teen years in power, thus giving them time to make their 
fortunes by peculations on the public purse, dreaded the 
access to office of a man who had lately proved himseK a 
detector of corruption, and a reformer of abuses. 

They raised an immense amount of money from official 
and private sources, for they had filled their pockets 
while so long in power. This money they employed in 
9 



174 

procuring a false return from the managers of the result 
of the election. They artful! j falsified the plebiscite. 
Anything was better than 'have their doings examined 
into, while they had been serving the people and provid- 
ing for themselves. 

It is needless to go into details, now pretty well known, 
as to how they managed their game. For according to 
the politician's code of morals, poHtics is a game which 
skillful players make profitable. 

The truly elected President was adroitly shut out of 
office, and his defeated opponent put in his place. At 
the end of four years another election for President was 
at hand. The party having been now twenty years in 
office and power, had learned much, and made much 
profit in that time. It would not do to play exactly the 
same game over again. They now managed matters 
more skillfully. They used plenty of money in buying 
up the pleMscite, and I believe succeeded; but they first 
made sure that their candidate, besides ability, should 
have a due amount of corruptibility for their purposes. 

But unluckily for them their well-chosen tool was 
assassinated, cut off by a crazy political fanatic, before 
they had made full use of him. To keep up the farce 
and cover the uses they had made of him, the party tried 
to make a saint of him in the face of some damning facts 
of corruption, not of late occurrance, which stood in the 
way of his canonization. But some untimely and un- 
expected revelations came out later, fully exposing his 
corrupt, designing, and unscrupulous character. 

These, and a multitude of similar historical facts, show 
that universal suffrage is far less calculated to give office 
to trustworthy patriots and statesmen, than to artful and 
unscrupulous demagogues, who have the knack of im- 



175 

posing themselves on the populace, to gain their own 
corrupt ends. 

In the United States, under the influence of universal 
suffrage, as the source of all political power, the character 
and morals of politicians have grown steadily worse and 
worse, from 1789 to this day. If any government could 
possibly succeed in confiscating the land, or the net profits 
earned from it, that is the rent, nominally for the benefit 
of every man in the community (see Progress and Pover- 
ty), it must of course be a thoroughly radical democratic 
State, with all, in theory, in the hands of the multitude ; 
but in fact in that of the demagogues who profess to act 
for the people, but are really serving only themselves and 
their partisans, for whom they create offices. Little good 
would the multitude get out of this wholesale confiscation 
of landed property. To satisfy these millions of greedy 
claimants, all the acquisitions and accumulations, resulting 
from the industry, skill, and economy of private persons, 
w^ould have to be divided among them. What a splendid 
result would this be, from the progress of civilization 
and political wisdom ! 

Political corruption is bad enough. But perhaps it is 
not the worst symptom spreading over the United States. 
There is one growing rapidly, which comes home to men's 
bosoms and their families. In most of the States of the 
Union there has been in this generation a great relaxa- 
tion of the binding nature of the marriage contract. 
And it has been followed by an even disproportioned 
multiplication of divorces. 

The most frivolous causes seem to suffice for dissolving 
a marriage. While, in fact, wherever it is most difficult 
to obtain a divorce, there the fewer married people seek 
or desire one. 



176 

This facility of divorce, and the frequency of them, 
besides demoralizing the whole people ; is particularly 
destructive to tlie training, morals, character, and happi- 
ness of the offspring of the divorced couples. Society 
and social life are founded on the family, and this 
foundation seems to be rotting away. Nothing can re- 
place it. 



LI. 



Do isTATioisrs deteriorate ? Perhaps they do. Nations 
may become corrupted and degraded. But, judging by 
the light of history, the chief cause producing a radical, 
permanent, incurable deterioration of national character 
has been the intermixture with inferior races. The 
Greeks, in their later history, certainly declined in 
national character, after the conquests of Alexander and 
his successors had mingled them with other races of 
western Asia and eastern Africa. 

The original characteristics of the Komans seem to 
have been very much altered after their wide conquests. 
These conquests introduced a crowd of people of various 
races into Italy, both as freemen and slaves. That and 
subsequent immigrations greatly altered the character of 
the people of Italy. 

The Saracens, in their wide conquests, intermixed 
themselves with inferior races more effectually than the 
Greeks and the Romans. Tlie practice of polygamy and 
their eagerness to make converts to their faith promoted 
this intermixture. There can be little doubt that the 
race of the Arabs is much deteriorated, by polygamy 
especially, even in Arabia. The same remark applies to 
the Turks, but they mingled themselves chiefly with bet- 



177 

ter races. Both Turks and Saracens showed great disre- 
gard to race. As Lord Bacon remarks of the Turks, 
they had no vahie for sthps in marriage. 

Where purity of race is not valued it is vain to look 
for the jDermanent maintenance of native character and 
traits. The introduction of inferior races into a country 
will affect its institutions and its social condition. 

The presence of several millions of manumitted 
negroes in the Southern States of the Union greatly 
affects their political, industrial, and social condition. 
Something like this would be the effect, in time, should 
there be a great influx from over-peopled China into the 
United States by the convenient ports on the Pacific 
coast. In the case of the negro and the Chinese, their 
presence seems to tend little to bring about a mixture of 
blood. But, industrially and politically, their presence 
is an evil to the country. 

What would be the effect of the introduction of sev- 
eral millions of Chinese into England 1 They are indus- 
trious laborers, very saving, even on low wages. Their 
presence there would be disastrous to the laboring 
classes. They would under-live them, and lower their 
condition. The great influx even of Irish into England 
has had that tendency there. For they are content to 
live on cheaper food, and with fewer household comforts, 
than the English laborer. 

It is a great evil to nations of the better races to be 
pitted in the struggle for the means of living, against 
races which, from their low" estimate of what is needed 
for decent and comfortable living, can supplant a higher 
race by under- working and under- living them. The 
negroes are the least evil ; for they M'ould almost rather 
starve than work, at least persistently. But the Chinese 



178 

are very industrious and economical, and can starve out 
any white race of laborers. 

I have said that States have no right to prohibit em- 
migration. That is an infringement on natural liberty. 
But a nation of one race has a perfect right to prohibit 
the immigration of inferior races. For such an influx 
does them a most serious and permanent injury. One of 
the first duties of a people is to preserve the purity of 
their race. Races make institutions. You cannot trans- 
fer the institutions of one race to another, they will not 
work well there ; not even from the Teuton to the Celt, 
much as they may seem to resemble each other. A dis- 
regard to race and descent is a gross error. 

Is there such a thing as patriotism ? Judging from 
men's words rather than their conduct, there doubtless is. 
Yet different men have very different ideas of patriotism, 
and would define it very discordantly. With many it is 
but a name for local attachment. Many an Englishman 
limits his, at heart, to his village, his town, or a particular 
street in his city. Many a rustic Scotchman, to his 
moor. Many an Irishman to his potato patch, and the 
bog which yields his turf. Many a Bedouin Arab to his 
desert, including the little oasis where he pitches his 
tent, while a few date palms are rijDening their fruit over 
his head. Each of these men locates his patriotism at 
that spot where his interests and habits have found a 
home. 

Some men of rather more enlarged ideas will tell you 
that their patriotism cleaves to the institutions of their 
country. But in this revolutionary age the institutions 
of many countries are undergoing such rapid changes, 
that the patriotism of but ten years ago must find a new 
object to cleave to to-day. 



179 

Some men may say that their patriotism binds them to 
their race — deriving patriotism, not from patria, but 
going further back, to pater ; their patriotism cleaving 
exclusively to the race from which they sprung ; whether 
it be a nomadic tribe wandering incessantly in the wilds 
of Tartary, or Arabia, or the Sahara, or, like the modern 
Jews, scattered over the face of the earth. 

Although no lover of the modern Jews, or of their 
characteristics — being more prone to borrow than to lend, 
and having paid far more for the use of money than I 
ever received — I can better understand this form of 
patriotism than that of mere locality. Doubtless a man's 
true native country is his race. ISTature seems to have 
implanted something very like an antipathy between 
widely different races. And a thorough intermixture of 
the blood of two or more races of widely different char- 
acters utterly destroys the possibility of feeling true 
patriotism. Even local admixture goes far to produce 
that effect. As to local patriotism, its chief value is the 
means it affords of keeping up the better patriotism of 
race. 

With reference to this combination of the two forms 
of patriotism, the Celtic Irish are the most patriotic of 
people. Migration to another country, and even sworn 
allegiance to its government, does not make the Irishman 
less Irish than he was before he left Ireland. The dream 
of his waking as of his sleeping hours is still how to 
expel, or to extirpate from his country, the Norman and 
Saxon intruders of seven centuries' standing, and restore 
the green gem of the ocean to its earlier settlers. And 
yet, strange to say, in all their aspirations to that end, 
they have been often guided and led by scions cut from 
the stock of those foreign intruders whom they still call 



^ 180 

Saxons — thus betraying who were the natural rulers of 
the country. 

For my part, I value the patriotism of race far above 
those of locality, or of ephemeral institutions. In my 
opinion an English lady, or Scotch, or German, or French, 
or Irish, makes a grosser and more hopeless mesalliance 
in wedding a Turkish Pasha, a Chinese Mandarin, a 
Hindoo Rajah, or a Mohawk chief, than if she married an 
honest plowman of her own race and country. For 
although the human offspring is thought to take after 
the mother rather than the father, in making that mesal- 
liance, she has spoiled the hreed. 



LII. 



I NEVER could see on what solid ground was based the 
claim, that the mere fact that a man is in a country, 
with nothing but those personal endowments he received 
from I^ature, gave him a right to exercise a voice in the 
making of its laws, in controlling the nation there, and 
imposing taxes on the property of individuals. 

A primitive tribe, weak in numbers, surrounded by 
dangers, in constant danger of extirpation by more 
powerful neighbors, and needing the aid of the armed 
hand of every man among them to preserve, if possible, 
their existence, might in their emergency have adopted 
such a polity. But we know that they seldom or never 
did, and certainly never retained it long. Almost every 
country has 23ref erred to be governed, even when it be- 
came a republic, by those who have something at stake 
in the community beyond their mere personal presence 
there. Their interest otherwise is not obvious and definite 



181 

enough to entitle them to any influence in controlling the 
affairs of other people. It may even become their 
interest to mismanage them. 

A voter, therefore, should have a stake in the com- 
munity, to make him feel the ill effects of gross mis- 
management of the public and private interests of the 
nation. There is no qualification for tlie franchise so 
easily and certainly ascertained, as that which compels 
men to share the burden of supporting the government, 
that is, one which necessarily renders him liable to taxa- 
tion, a property qualification. Then, if those in office 
mismanage the affairs of the public, this voter with a 
property qualification who put them into office, feels the 
effect of their incapacity or dishonesty, as he ought to 
do. ^Nothing is more disgusting in politics than to dis- 
cover, not only the corrupt, but often the utterly frivolous 
motives which control men's votes, where they have no 
honest interest at stake. 

He who represents the qualified voters needs no other 
qualification than the confidence of those he represents. 
They choose and send him as their agent or attorney to 
attend to their public interests. The important point to 
the coitfitry at large is, that they who send him should 
have such a stake in the country, that they can and ought 
to have a share in controlling its counsels. 

In the English House of Commons (all the parlia- 
mentary bodies of this day are imitations of the English 
parliament) in early times, eacli borough paid the expenses 
of the member it sent there. He was the agent or 
attorney attending to their business and interests. Grad- 
ually, men ambitious of being in public life, gave up 
asking for their pa}^ as members of the House of Com- 
mons. They found out that the post yielded not only 



182 

honor, but might be made to yield profit also. It was 
good policy not to ask to have their expenses paid 
them. 

Andrew Marvell, member for Hull, Yorkshire, during 
most of the reign of Charles II, a man of more scrupulous 
integrity than often falls to the lot of members of parlia- 
mentary bodies, is said to have been the last M.P. whose 
expenses were regularly paid by his constituents. 

Since then parliamentary bodies have sprung up in 
many countries, and a corrupt practice has sprung up 
with them. The representatives of particular constitu- 
encies are paid, not by those they represent, but by the 
State, as if they were executive or administrative officers 
of the government, which they are not. This change 
has been exceeding convenient to needy demagogues who 
would thrust themselves into public life, in order to 
obtain more profitable offices, under the guise of patriot- 
ism. It has greatly smoothed the path of many a needy 
patriot. But for this change in the mode of paying 
representatives, the Congress of the United States could 
not have distinguished themselves, as they did a few 
years ago, in making their famous, or notorious. Salary 
Orab. 

A government based on this modern invention, uni- 
versal manhood suffrage, as the source of all political 
power, represented by their paid agents; can be best 
likened to a great national bank to which every one in 
the community is required to subscribe, not only all he 
has, both of material and intellectual acquisitions, but all 
he may yet acquire. The managers are to be appointed, 
not by proxies, each proportioned to the number of shares 
each subscriber holds. No, there are no proxies. All 
the manhood suffrage voters must attend at the election 



183 

and choose the managers. When the day is at hand for 
declarhig a dividend ; these managers after appropriating 
the amount needed to meet the expenses of this institu- 
tion, expenses made up of salaries, sundries, almost 
numberless, and a monstrous unexplained contingent 
fund ; they then allot to each voter an equal share of 
the dividend. Those who have contributed large amounts 
to the capital of the bank, now see that they have been 
robbed, both by the managers and the vast majority of 
the voters who have contributed little, most of them 
nothing, to the bank capital, consisting of all the earnings 
and accumulations of a nation. Under any other govern- 
ment, they would appeal for justice to the courts of law 
and equity. But in this case the multitude of robbers 
and plunderers are at once the jury, the court, the law ! 
There is no appeal ! There is no justice before or behind 
them ! 

This is the true working of manhood suffrage when 
thoroughly in operation. 



LIII. 



We have said and labored to prove, that the ends for 
which government exists are two, and two only. 1st, 
The administration of justice within the community. 
2d. The defense of the community and of the individ- 
uals composing it against external enemies. In a primi- 
tive state of society, while men are united into small 
tribes only, and are in constant danger of attacks 
from without, defense against foes from without is the 
dominent need for government. But when States 
come to unite civilized multitudes, in occupation of a 



184 

territory with extensive and well-defined borders, dan- 
gers from abroad become remote and occasional; and 
the administration of justice, the protection of private 
rights from dangers from within, become the chief nse 
and end of government. In extensive and civilized 
countries multitudes go from their cradles to their graves 
without ever seeing the face of a foreign enemy, yet 
every day of their lives have looked in the face of inter- 
nal enemies, quite ready to rob them of their rights, if 
the obstacles were removed which government puts in 
their way. The more the country thrives, the denser 
the population becomes, the more these enemies mul- 
tiply. 

Society is full of selfish, grasping, rapacious animals in 
the guise of men. Envy of the successful and prosperous 
exercises a powerful and malignant influence over the 
unprosperous and unsuccessful ; and even what is called 
the spirit of liberty is largely mingled with a licentious 
desire to be rid of all control, and even to exercise 
tyranny over others. If success is apt to engender a 
pride which leads the j^rosperous to overlook, and look 
down upon those below them ; it is more than counter- 
balanced by the envy and animosity it excites in the 
hearts of many of those on whom fortune has frowned 
instead of smiling. 

The chief use of government, in all large and civilized 
States especially, has now become the protecting and se- 
curing the private rights of individuals, from the attacks 
made on them from within their own country : for the 
acquisition of these rights and the accumulation of their 
results in the hands of the owners, are what has built up 
the prosperity and civilization of the country. 

In the present state of the civilized world, the power to 



186 

tax is tlie power to govern. The power to distribute the 
proceeds of taxation is something more than the power to 
govern. It is the power to corrupt ! And may be used 
for that end, and with fatal effect, A strong effort is 
being made by a class of persons, who seem not to be few 
in number, or without influence, to pervert governments 
themselves, into the agencies to produce this ruinous effect. 

But what men need in government, is a stable, perma- 
nent, and reliable, protector to their natural and acquired 
rights ; especially the last, which are the most exposed to 
danger. Such a iDroteetor is utterly incompatible with 
the teachings of the so-called poet Walt Whitman; whose 
doctrine is, that the great right and duty of mankind is 
the devising, and practice of revolution. 

If we wished to pervert the institution called govern- 
ment into the very best means of defeating the ends for 
which it came into existence, without betraying our 
design, how would we proceed? We would make univer- 
sal manhood suffrage the exclusive source of all political 
power, and adopt as the end aimed at : '^' The greatest good 
of the greatest number." We need do no more. At once, 
as this institution cannot exercise its own functions, 
thousands of aspiring spirits, greedy for place and power, 
start up all over the country, and exercise themselves, in, 
what has been well named, that fraudulent art, oratory.^ 
persuading the multitude that they, these orators, are the 
men, who will most zealously seek the greatest good of 
the greatest number ; and that the rival haranguers, are 
not the right men for the people's purpose. 

Man has been called a reasoning animal, because he 
sometimes does reason. But, a multitude never reasons. 
Its passions, its prejudices, its animosities, and its hopes, 
are easily roused. The most artful haranguer wins their 



186 

favor ; and places of trust and power, are tilled, not by 
statesmen, but demasi'oa'ues. For the talents that best 
serve to win office, are very different from those which 
can fill it, and fulfill its duties best. Many of these suc- 
cessful aspirants for popular favor, are doubtless men of 
abilities, to serve their own jDurposes. But they must 
redeem their pledge : " Do the greatest good to the 
greatest number." The country is rich, with great re- 
sources, unfortunately in the hands of a comparatively 
few. They do not stop to inquire how that came to pass. 
These resources of the country, common to all, must 
benefit all. They must clothe, feed, house, educate the 
nation. These demagogue statesmen must indent modes 
of distributing the bounties of iSTature, not forgetting to 
provide for themselves, and their personal partisans. If 
they have few of the latter, they must win more by aid 
of government patronage. Unluckily they find it diffi- 
cult to get beyond that point. Partisans are so numerous 
and so greedy, that the resources of the country already 
begin to fail under their exactions. More must be 
exacted from the producing classes, for the benefit of those 
who do not, will not, or cannot produce. The country 
is on the verge of a crisis, and shows unexpected symp- 
toms of a decay of prosperity and resources. They cannot 
see the true reason. It is suffering from misgovernment, 
on utterly false principles. You only need to continue 
this policy, to ruin the prosperity of the country, degrade 
its civilization, and sap the very idea of property and 
honesty. 

The great bulk of the resources of every civilized 
country, at least, are the result of the industry, skill, and 
economy of individuals, and of right must remain in their 
hands. Moreover, the very possession, of these resources, 



187 

ought to give them so much influence and control over 
the government, as to enable them to j)revent its entering 
on any policy, leading to their ruin, which involves that 
of the community, Tiie principle of representation, in 
a representative State, must embrace that much at least, 
as to acquired and vested rights. 

Let us take the United States as an example of a Gov- 
ernment founded on certain theories as to political organi- 
zation. It would require the profoundest ignorance, or 
the height of hypocrisy in any man, to enable him to 
assert that the Government that now exists there is the 
same that was founded by the thirteen States, in 1789, 
when they made that treaty with each other, which is 
known as " the Constitution of the United States." Since 
then, democracy has utterly changed its nature, and per- 
verted most of the principles of confederation and repub- 
licanism involved in it, jN^ow, practically, it is impossible 
to say what are the powers of the Federal Government, or 
what are the limits to its j^owers. Let any impartial man, 
sit down, and read the Constitution as it was adojjted in 
1789, and compare that treaty between the thirteen States, 
with the centralized Government that now exists in its 
place. It would be too much to ask of him, to trace the 
numberless steps by which this revolution has been 
achieved. It has become a paternal Government, aiming 
to do for the people all that they should do for them- 
selves. 

The United States Gomrninent originated in, andicas 
based on, confederation, not on universal suffrage. The 
latter was an afterthought, springing up rapidly, over- 
groumig, smothering, and is now l>lotting out the confed- 
eration. 



188 

LIV. 

As TO tlie usurpation of duties by the State, I will 
give an illustration. One modern and very conspicuous 
charity, originating solely from, and still supported by 
j)rivate benevolence, escajied by its peculiar nature, the 
usurping patronage of the State. I refer to the life-boats, 
and life-saving service which watches over the crews of 
vessels in distress on the British coast. Perhaps the fact 
that it affords no patronage to those in office sheltered it 
from their propensity to meddle with every charity. It 
has escaped that dangerous incubus of State patronage 
and control ; and survives in its natural condition of a 
s]3ontaneous combination of the benevolence of individ- 
uals, to exhibit the provident arrangements of ITature for 
such ends, and the needless and mischievous effects of 
State intermeddling beyond the sphere of its duties. 

Private benevolence suggested this charity. Private 
beneficence still pays the cost of it ; and heroic private 
beneficence carries it into effective operation. For, al- 
though the crews of life-boats are, to some extent, paid 
for their services, being laboring men, fishermen, pilots, 
and others, earning a living by some other boating service ; 
they are paid only for their occasional exertions in the 
life-boats, while practising as a crew, or actually assisting 
a vessel in distress. But a great many of these men 
have lost their lives in this hazardous employment. It is 
so little tempting or profitable, that perhaps not one of 
them ever embarked in it with a view to profit. We 
must attribute to them no small amount of zeal to save 
life, even at the hazard of their own. 

This life-saving service is a conspicuous illustration of 
what private benevolence in voluntary combination, can 



189 

do in various directions for the relief of human needs and 
wants, for tlie mitigation of destitution and suffering, for 
the instruction of the ignorant, and for most other ills in 
society, without any usurping, intermeddling, and control 
over private charities, on the part of the State. 

The State will best serve the purposes of humanity, not 
by founding its own institutions for the relief of chronic 
or even casual evils, and providing for their support by 
taxation, thus making people charitable by act of parlia- 
ment ; but by simply facilitating the combination of pri- 
vate charity, by incorporating these associations, and 
legalizing their action when applied to for that purpose. 
I am convinced that even the care and management of the 
most difficult evil in society, the case of the insane, could 
be so provided for. 

It must be remembered that the attempt, on the part 
of the State, to do certain kinds of good, prevents much 
of the good of those kinds, which would have been done 
by private charity. It largely uses up, by taxation and 
misappropriation, the means that would have been at the 
command of private benevolence, and discourages the 
exercise of it. Government exists only for the preven- 
tion of actual evil, not to originate direct and positive 
good. Its duties are negative. It is a costly and bur- 
densome institution at the best ; and becomes more burden- 
some with every new duty it assumes, and with every 
additional power it usurps, beyond its primitive duties of 
administering justice, and defending the community, 
which two duties the State alone can perform. 

History affords many striking examples, by the suc- 
cessful performance of these two duties, by the State, 
under very adverse circumstances, indicating that they 
are the sole duties Nature intended the State to fulfill for 
the commimity under its protection. 



190 

As to national defense. Grovernments, when once well 
established, have seldom failed, in time of war, to call out 
the strength and resources of the nation ; and to find 
courageous, patriotic, and faithful leaders of their forces 
raised to defend the country. 

Not to multiply examples : A few small and divided 
States, in Greece, often at war with each other, for once 
uniting their arms, succeeded in resisting and defeating 
the seemingly overwhelming and irresistible forces of the 
Persian Empire. And, in far later times, the barren, 
sparsely peopled kingdom of Scotland, habitually much 
divided, and at war within itself ; repeatedly foiled the 
efforts at conquest, made by her far richer, more populous, 
united, and powerful neighbor, close on her border. We 
may observe here that States are seldom jealous of their 
prerogative, their exclusive right to defend the country. 
When hard pressed, they gladly receive the aid of those of 
the community, or from elsewhere, who not being em- 
bodied in the regular levies, voluntarily take arms as 
partisan corys^ to resist and harass the enemy ; and also 
the aid of privateers, under letters of marque^ seeking 
to cripple their commercial resources. 

As to the matter of the administration of justice. 
We find, to our surprise, that even under so corrupt, 
efiete, and declining a government as that of tlie Roman 
Empire ; long after the palmy days of Roman vigor and 
greatness had passed away, the science of jurisprudence 
was more assiduously cultivated than it ever had been in 
the history of man. 

Steadily, for centuries, under a corrupt and despotic 
government, experiencing frequent and sudden changes 
of its rulers, b}^ military sedition and violence, there grew 
up a code of laws, which, while it did not protect the 



191 

people against the State ; or secure their liberties against 
political or military tyranny ; yet all those who have 
mastered its provisions, miite in declaring that, in the 
protection it affords to private^ rights against the aggres- 
sions of private persons; it far surpasses any human code ; 
approaching near to a perfect system of ethics. And we 
have reason to believe that, even in those troubled and 
corrupt ages, it was usually fairly administered in the 
courts of the Empire. This " Roman Civil Law," the 
code of Justinian, is to this day the basis of the civil law 
of the whole of Western Europe, except England. 

To give another example of the natural tendency of a 
government to fulfill the great duty of administering 
justice between the people under its rule. Under the 
corrupt and tyrannical government of France, under the 
Old Regime^ the redeeming page of its history, the 
brightest star that shone on the progress of the nation, 
was seen in the administration of justice in civil suits — in 
the learning and purity of the noblesse de la robe. For 
the provincial parlements, by a gradual revolution, had 
become the high courts of justice. They retained their 
independence and patriotism as courts of law, in astonish- 
ing purity, in spite of the national corruj^tion around 
them. Xo country excelled France in the learning, 
wisdom, and integrity of its judges. The basis of the 
French code was this same Code of Justinian. 

Yet strange to say, most of these men entered on their 
professional career, by the purchase of an office, or seat 
in the courts. The noblesse de la robe seem to have been 
a very peculiar body — consisting of families which had 
for generations devoted themselves to the law — each one 
giving no small part of his patrimony to the cost of an 
elaborate education, and perhaps most of the remainder 



192 

to the purchase of the post of a counsellor of parlement — 
which enabled him to practise the profession. Profes- 
sional and family pride seem usually to have mounted 
guard over their integrity. 

To my mind, the success of the combined benevolence of 
individuals in the life-saving service ; and the unexpected 
success of feeble nations in national defense, and of corrupt 
States in the administration of justice — are broad iiints, 
given by provident Nature, to States, to devote themselves 
exclusively to these two last duties, and' to let charities 
and other matters alone — as out of their spliere. 

LY. 

When we listen to the theories of a host of political 
philosophers of this enlightened age ; and hear from them 
what social and political reforms, or rather revolutions, 
are strongly urged upon us, as essential to the welfare, 
progress, nay, the preservation of society ; we are tempted 
to think the world is just waking up out of primitive 
barbarism. 

But on looking back on past ages — for we have the 
means of so doing — on a careful survey of the past, and 
comparing it with the present ; the first thing that strikes 
us is, that man was then pretty much what he is 
now, but with vast changes in his habits and opinions, in 
some countries. The next thing is, that men, strongly 
influenced by the first government they knew, the patri- 
archal rule, made the most strenuous efforts to extend its 
application. Even after they had tried such other forms 
of government as accidental circumstances suggested; 
they soon found that the greatest and most frequent 
source of commotion, tumult, violence, and crime, dis- 



193 

tracting and breaking up the community — was the fierce 
and unscrupulous struggles generated by individual 
ambition. 

How was this evil to be guarded against? Nature 
provided for it. 

At some critical period in the life of a tribe, a combina- 
tion of tribes, or of a nation, some man of eminent ability 
and energy had rescued it from great dangers, perhaps 
conquest or extermination by foreign enemies. He 
united the community into a more compact body, perhaps 
drew into union with it some neighboring and cognate 
tribes ; and averting a succession of dire public evils, 
may have ruled the nation long and prosperously. 

In the decline of his years, he may have intrusted to 

his son many of the more active duties of the public 

service. This son, if an able man, would acquire great 

personal influence, and attach many of the chief and most 

, able of the nation to himself. 

Meanwhile a new generation lias grown up, and the 
nation, almost without knowing it, is returning to tlie 
patriarchal idea of government. On the death of the 
father, the son may naturally succeed him. For there 
might well be nobody in the community, who saw the 
least chance of successfully disputing with him the first 
place in the nation. The remnant of patriarchal rule and 
influence would still linger in many localities, and prepare 
the people, quite familiar with it, to return to, and adopt 
it on the largest scale. 

It is a gross misconception to suppose that hereditary 
rule originated in usurpation and tyranny. It must have 
begun in the confiding attachment of followers to a chief. 
Justice and fair deahng to those under his rule, are in- 
stinctively his natural policy ; and are equally the natural 



194 

policy of his successors. In their political conduct none 
of them seek to make enemies among their subjects. 
Personally, they have no motive for oppressing one class 
for the benefit of another. 

Communities and nations very early discovered, rather 
by instinct than reason, this simple means of shutting out 
a large part of those fierce contentions which tore society 
to pieces. They gave the place of chief, or rather, they 
promptly received as their chief, the son of their dead 
chief. This gradually hardened into the rule of succes- 
sion hj hereditary descent, as the best safeguard against 
a disputed succession and its possible consequences. 
This remedy against civil tumult and war, and the 
possible division of the nation, must have a foundation in 
man' s instinctive search after peace and civil order. For 
it has been adopted in every age, in every country, in 
every phase of society, among every race of men who even 
approximated to civilization. 

Numerous as have been the civil wars and internal 
commotions, harassing and devastating nations, the nar- 
ratives of which cover a monstrous projDortion of the 
pages of history ; they would have been vastly multiplied, 
and their evils greatly swollen but for this one rule — the 
hereditary succession of the son to the father. Taking 
into view the whole history of nations, this rule of hered- 
itary succession has secured to them more unity, peace, 
and prosperity ; has curbed more criminal ambition, and 
proved a stronger safeguard against intestine commo- 
tion — than any other conceivable measure could have 
done. 

No doubt many a republic, and occasionally, even an 
oligarchy, has been driven to adopt monarchy for the 
sake of peace and safety ; and once adopted, monarchy 



195 

naturally becomes hereditary. It is a great security to 
the peace and prosperity of the country when, the an- 
nouncement, " Le Roi c'est mort^'^ is at once followed 
by the proclamation " Vim le Roi /" shutting out com- 
motion, and forestalling the ambition that might lead to 
bloody wars. 

Some nations have not hmited succession to the male 
line ; but, in default of a son to succeed the dead sove- 
reign, have given their allegiance to the daughter. 
Nor do any particular evils seem to have sprung 
from this enlargement of the rule of hereditary succes- 
sion. Female succession has at times been attended by 
peculiar success, and been received with extraordinary 
enthusiasm. As when Maria Theresa, Empress of Aus- 
tria, being hard pressed by her great enemy, Frederick, 
of Prussia, assembled the Hungarian nobles, and person- 
ally applied to them for aid. They rose as one man, 
drew their swords and exclaimed as with one voice : 
" We will die for our King, Maria Theresa !" 

In primitive times, the duties of the king might be 
simply defined. Thus, the discontented people of Israel . 
demanded a king of the prophet Samuel, "That our 
King may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our 
battles." They looked only for the performance of the 
two great duties of the State. 

No hereditary monarchy ever existed long without 
there growing up around it limitations to the exercise of 
sovereign power. Yery soon there were many things 
that the king could not do. Even ucder the autocratic 
empire of Persia, it became the established rule that the 
royal decree should be preceded by a consultation of the 
great officers and notables of the Empire ; and to secure 
caution in legislation the maximum was adopted, that the 



196 

decree was uncliangeable, " According to the law of the 
Medes and the Persians, which altereth not." 

The limitation to the abuse of sovereign power is, in 
almost every nation, exercised first by a class scattered 
over the country, wielding great local influence. They 
may be the heads of old tribes which still feel the influ- 
ence of ancestral ties, or more often, the heads of great 
families which some generations of able and success- 
ful ancestors have raised to local importance. Many of 
them are highly educated, not a few are able men accus- 
tomed to deal with affairs of importance, and to exercise 
great influence. These men have their ambition, but it is 
not of a revolutionary kind. ISTo class is more interested in 
the prosperity and good government of the State, or more 
anxious to promote it than they are. Governments are 
essentially conservative institutions, created to preserve, 
not to revolutionize and destroy ; and this influential 
class are eminently conservative. 

The sovereign sees that it is far easier and safer to rule 
with the support of this class, than in opposition to it. 
The abler of them are taken into the royal counsels, 
some of them fill important offices, and contribute greatly 
to the easy and smooth working of the departments of 
government. 

Perhaps there never was a truly autocratic sovereignty, 
except those ci'eated by great conquerors, such as Genghis 
Khan, Timour the Great, ISTapoleon Bonaparte, and some 
few others known in the world's history ; and this autoc- 
racy of the ruler seldom, or never, lasted beyond the life 
of the founder. Limitations on power soon spring up. 

If it be asked what does a liereditary nobility repre- 
sent? we would say that it represents for the whole 
nation the principle of inheritance, without which the 



197 

country could never have risen to prosperity or civiliza- 
tion. It is the conservative representation of acquired and 
vested rio-hts, tlie overthrow of which leads to national 
ruin. 

After a long line of hereditary succession, the personal 
character and capacity of the sovereign becomes of far 
less importance than it would have been at an earlier era. 
It may at times be an advantage that the sovereign has 
no remarkable vigor of character. However able and 
estimable the sovereign may be, his greatest value to the 
nation is now his undisjDuted filling of that first place at 
its head ; which, were it vacant, would awaken the dan- 
gerous ambition of many aspiring men, in the country, 
and lead to a fierce and demoralizing struggle to gain the 
vacant post by the most unscrupulous means. 

The mass of men are, always have been, ever will be, 
incapable of embracing, with head and heart, an abstract 
code of principles in politics ; and of giving an honest, 
understanding, and undivided allegiance to them. But 
all men can give a true allegiance to an individual, repre- 
senting a family whose career is inseparably connected with 
critical eras in their country's history, and with vital 
principals of national policy and rights. Poland might 
have escaped partition, and national extinction, had it 
adhered, like its neighbors, to hereditary succession to 
the crown. And Portugal would now have been but a 
province of Spain, if it had not clung to the house of 
Braganza, as the true line of succession to the throne. 



LVI. 

A FAvoKiTE topic witli the radical reformers of this day 
is the monopoly of land in few hands. 
10 



198 

It is a gross error to tliink that large landed estates in- 
dicate a wasteful employment of a nation's resources. 
On the contrary, nothing has tended more to increase the 
productiveness of many countries than large landed 
estates. 

Almost all the imj)rovements in that all-important art, 
agriculture, have sprung from the fact that there were 
large estates in land. For the owner of many thousand 
acres can seldom take much of it under cultivation in his 
own hands. He generally finds it best to divide the land 
into convenient-sized farms, and lease them to tenants. 

The ultimate effect has been that there grew up a class 
of farmers, not mei'e peasants, clowns who do not look 
beyond the necessity of following the plow mechan- 
cally for a living, as their fathers did ; but men, by 
choice, devoted to rural life, and agricultural and pastoral 
pursuits. Few of them have wealth enough to buy a 
farm of their own. For in an old country that requires 
something like a fortune. But they have money enough 
to stock a farm, large or small, and they take one on 
lease from the proprietor. 

There arises, in time, in the country a most important 
class of what may be called professional and scientific 
agriculturists and stock-breeders, devoted to their chosen 
occupations ; and S23ecially trained to them. As all men 
bave not the needful aptitudes, although they may have 
the tastes, for these pursuits ; the unsuccessful have to 
seek other occupations as' a means of living. 

Many of these farmers become scientific men in their 
especial line. To this class of educated,^rentific farmers 
we owe nearly all the great improvements in agriculture 
and stock-breeding; which have more than doubled, per- 
haps trebled, the productions of the necessaries of life 
from the same land within the last hundred years. 



199 

The vast improvement in implements and macliinery, 
as applied to farming ; the extended and skillful appli- 
cation of manures, guided by agricultural chemistry ; 
judicious rotation of crops, improved breeds of stock, 
and all that is now known as high farming, is due to this 
educated class of farmers. All this development of the 
agricultural resources of the country, and its immensely 
increased production, required larger farms, in tlie hands 
of educated men ; with a command of capital unknown 
to the small farmer of past generations. 

Taking Great Britain, as an example. It is necessary 
to know something of the state of farming there one 
hundred years ago, and what was the production on the 
small farms of that time, in the hands of uneducated ten- 
ants, mere day laborers in their qualifications ; and com- 
pare their product, especially the live-stock, with that of 
the larger farms and the farmers of the present time. A 
greatly larger amount of production, both vegetable and 
animal, from far less manual labor has been the result. 
This progress was only possible where there were many 
large estates ; which, far from discouraging population, 
afford it direct and the greatest possible encouragement, 
by increasing the production of the necessaries of life. 



LYII. 

The whole history of society and of civilization, es- 
pecially in this age, proves that there is in Nature, a 
violent tendency in material acquisitions, to run into few 
hands. That a few will grow very rich, while the many 
continue or become comparatively poor. We know that 
great wealth will carry with it great, and often, corrupting 



200 

influences. It is better for mankind that mncli of tliis 
great wealth, should have passed bj inheritence, into the 
hands of those who, by birth and training, are actuated 
by other motives and objects in life, than those which 
usually control the parvenu millionaire with whom 
money has been the sole object, and source of influence 
and power. This wealth has often been acquired by the 
most unscrupulous arts. That is necessarily a corrupt 
and degrading condition of society in which men are 
valued by one single test — -the weight of their purses. 
This is, perhaps, characteristic of this age beyond all 
others. 

Old riches and new riches are represented by very dif- 
ferent classes of persons. In general, ancient wealth has 
brought with it to its possessors some culture and refine- 
ment, a measure of family pride, and a sense of obligation 
and of honor, which, if not virtues, at least generate a 
desire to emulate the character and reputation of their 
forefathers ; of whom they almost always think more 
highly than they deserve. Most of this class are zealous 
to uphold the honor and institutions of their country. 

But newly acquired riches have none of these temper- 
ing influences on the character of their possessor. And 
in this speculating, stock-jobbing age, the greatest wealth 
often faUs into the most unscrupulous hands. 

It has been said that it takes several generations to 
make a gentleman. This is not strictly true. I have 
known gentlemen who were born, as it were, between the 
handles of the plow ; but they are rare. Some one has 
defined nobility to be ancient wealth. Certainly the pos- 
session, by a family, of wealth for many generations, in- 
dicates stamina in the race, and affords them advantages 
of many kinds to build on, which often exercise essential 



201 

influences on their cliaracters. If well used, tliese advan- 
tages tend to raise the family to a jjosition of reputation 
and influence which make true nobility, although its rank 
may not be marked by any titles. There have long been, 
in England, families of great Commoners of note, which 
have refused to accept titles of nobility. 

Lord Bacon tells us that, " Those who are first raised 
to nobility, are commonly more virtuous {energet'tG and 
enterprising) but less innocent than their descendants ; 
for there is rarely any rising but by a commixture of 
good and evil arts. But it is reason that tli^ memory of 
their virtues remain to their posterity, and their faults 
die with themselves." 

It is absurd to suppose that men derive nothing in- 
capacity and sjjirit from the traits and merits of their fore- 
fathers. All social experience gives the lie to this. Per 
sonal qualities, both of body and mind, are often repro- 
ducing themselves in our descendants. The result from 
these natural tendencies has been that, in almost every 
old country, there have arisen many families, occupying 
for jnany generations eminent positions, exercising great 
social and political influence, and possessing large landed 
estates. 

But the revolutionary agitation of this age, with its 
social and political theories, is particularly hostile to 
these great families, and especially to their large landed 
properties. The same class of minds, which feel no ani- 
mosity against a charlatan who has made his millions by 
a quack nostrum — against the stock-jobber who has ac- 
quired yet more by his unscrupulous dealings in the 
money market, or the avowed gamester who has made an 
immense fortune by keeping a gamblers' hell, while using 
every art to lure the unwise to their ruin ; or the noted 



202 

actress or opera singer, at whose feet a thouglitless and 
frivolous crowd liave emptied their purses, until she has 
accumulated a princely fortune — all these may revel in 
their ill-gotten gains Math the greatest ostentation, in 
honor and safety, while aping and caricaturing the old 
nobility of European kingdoms, in their exterior style of 
life. But these revolutionary reformers would take 
Blenheim and the manor of Woodstock from the de- 
scendants of Marlborough, and Apsley house and Strathe- 
fieldsay from the descendants of Wellington, the gifts of 
a grateful n§,tion for good and great services rendered to 
their country. What more fitting monuments for great 
deeds and patriotic services could these great men desire, 
than such memorials in the hands of their lineal descend- 
ants, keeping their memories green in the hearts of a 
nation bound not to forget them ? 

The progress of society and civilization in modern 
Euroj)e is chiefly due to institutions which these radical 
reformers are striving to abolish. And their success is 
likely to show that they have done far more harm than 
good, should they succeed. Oriental society, wanting some 
of these very institutions, have been without the elements 
of stability and progress. " The Turks," Lord Bacon re- 
marks, "have no stirj^s, no regard for race." Every- 
where the cultivated classes, consisting of families long 
settled in the country, in easy circumstances, furnish the 
best attainable standard of education, manners, morals, 
and refinement. They, too, are the people who have the 
permanent good of the country most at heart. 

It is no more likely that all past history of political so- 
ciety is that of ignorance and error, than that the history 
of the future will be that of enlightenment and truth. 
In the progress of mankind new and unforeseen difii- 



203 

culties arise ; amid which we are as likely to stumble as 
we were of old. It may be that, iu the past, the few 
have often domineered over the many. But these few have 
been genei'ally the men most capable of dealing with 
public affairs. In the future the many, or rather the 
demagogues who lead the many, may tyrannize over the 
few, far more fatally obstructing the progress and wel- 
fare of mankind. 

Government is not designed so much to represent 
persons, as rights. It only represents persons, inasmuch 
as all persons are presumed to have some rights. The 
esj)ecial purpose for which it came into existence, is the 
protection of rights ; especially those which, not being of 
the kind possessed by every one, are peculiarly exposed 
to danger and trespass — most so where the Government 
is construed to be the protector of one, or some peculiar 
classes of rights ; as of men's personal liberty. The mod- 
ern discovery that the will of a bare majority constitutes 
truth, right, law, and justice ; the religious faitli in the 
vox populi as the vox dei ; that one million and one men 
have a legal and natural right to rule, tax, and j^lunder 
one million in the same country, by an arithmetical dem- 
onstration of a majority of one, in mere members ; al- 
though a vast preponderance of acquired and vested 
rights (for the protection of which the State came into 
existence) are in the hands of the smaller number — 
these rights being utterly unrepresented in the Govern- 
ment, although they make the possessors of them far the 
stronger and more important part of the nation ; the 
Pars major et melior ; the true, natural ruling ma- 
jority, representing a vast preponderance of rights and 
capacities, both material and intellectual — this doctrine 
exposes civilization to the utmost hazard. For there are 



204 

maDy indications that civilization is a perishable com- 
modity ; difficult to procure, more difficult to preserve ; 
and that its most inveterate enemy is insecu7'lty of ac- 
quired and vented rights. As to civilization in its high- 
est sense — cultivated . thought, sentiment, emotion, and 
principles — we have no reason to believe that any nation 
ever was, or will be civilized ; but only some individuals, 
or, possibly, some classes, which may greatly influence 
the multitude. That is the most we can hope for. But 
misgovern ment may easily defeat that, while aiming, or 
pretending to promote it. 

If it be trae that the power to tax is the power to 
govern, and manhood suffrage is the right basis of gov- 
ernment ; then a bare majority of voters, possessing no 
rights whatever but those that are personal — utterly 
without any proprietary rights, and subject to no taxa- 
tion — may, and, often do possess and exercise the whole 
power of taxing, i. e., of governing. 

If it be true that the great mass of voters in such a 
democracy, having no proprietary interests to be taxed, 
naturally fall under the lead and control of self-seeking 
demagogues ; and that the power to disburse the proceeds 
of taxation, is the power to corrupt all those who may live 
by employment in the service of the State : it follows 
that those who impose taxes, so far from having any 
motive for practising economy, have strong inducements 
to extravagance in levying taxes, and in spending the 
proceeds. The more they raise the more they have to 
spend, feeling themselves none of the burden of taxation, 
but only the benefits of expenditure. 

The result is that those in power, being placed in 
office by those who feel none of the burden, but only 
the benefits of taxation ; in order to retain their hold on 
office, are driven to practise this policy : 



205 

They employ tlie revenues of the State in buying np 
unhesitating and unscrupulous partisans ; they aim at 
swelling the numbers and strength of that great, paid 
army at their command ; an army of well-drilled voters 
and electioneering agents — thousands of them quartered 
in the custom-house, more thousands in the post-office, 
and in other government departments. Compared with 
this army out of uniform, the fighting army, in uni- 
form, is but a skeleton regiment. 

The enemy to be resisted is not a foreigner outside of 
the country — but more dangerous far, the tax-paying 
part of the community, here at home, next door, but out 
of office. 

The United States for example, maj^ be said to have 
no army, or navy. But those in office tliere have a mon- 
strous army out of uniform, at their beck, costing more 
money than the regular army of France or Germany. 

Yet these demagogue statesmen in office rack their 
brains to devise means to recruit their army of voters and 
agents. They look around to see what departments of 
business and life, can be converted into duties and prerog- 
atives of the State — in order to monopolize them, and fill 
tliem with their official creatures. 

The political theorists, of this day, seeking office, or al- 
ready enjoying State patronage, make many valuable sug- 
gestions on this point. The State may take charge of the 
railroads and telegraph lines — for the good of the people. 
That will give the State patronage and control of a new 
army of voters. The ownership by the State of coal, 
iron, gold, and other mines, and of jDetroleum wells — all 
for the good of the people. The monopoly of education 
will give the State the patronage over fifty thousand 
more educated voters ; and so on, until the major part of 
10* 



206 

the efficient men in the country, are in the pay of the 
State. Yet this monopolizing policy will be incomplete 
until the State assumes the ownership of all the land in 
the country, for the good of the people ! 

We sometimes meet with a true principle in an unex- 
pected place ; as if it had gone astray, and lost itself. 
The English nation had one as to taxation, which they let 
slip through their fingers, and lost a long time ago. 

In the confusion and obscurity of the Middle Ages, 
when the church had adroitly become a great power and 
a great proprietor in England ; whenever some national 
emergency, as a foreign war, called for an unusually large 
revenue, the parliament, and likewise the convocation of 
the clergy, were assembled ; and both were applied to for 
funds to meet the emergency. The parliament was in- 
duced to grant, sometimes a fifteenth, sometimes a tenth, 
to be levied on the assessed value of all the chattels, 
movables, or personal property of every layman. The 
clergy in convocation, made a similar, often a larger 
grant, out of their chattels. Each order taxed itself. 

Let us sup|)ose the process reversed,, and that each 
order taxed the other; would we not have occasionally 
seen some wild work, in the process of taxation ? Yet 
each would have been held in check, fearing to excite the 
animosity of those, who in turn would assess their taxes. 
But in a State based on manhood suffrage, all property 
being in the hands of less than one-third of the voters, 
there is no check on the more than two-thirds of the 
voters ; but rather a premium ofliered them, to induce 
them to carry on taxation even to confiscation. They 
imagine, falsely, that they can lose nothing, but may gain 
much by that process. A. hungry, greedy, multitude 
cannot reason, and is not long restrained by any scruples. 



207 

But the State has no right to burden the energetic and 
provident members of the community who are cUmbing 
to the higher grounds of civilization and prosperity, by 
compelling them to drag up with them the sluggish and 
improvident. This the State does, or attempts to do, 
whenever it taxes one class for the benefit of another. 

The most effectual mode of checking and preventing 
political usurpation and corruption, is to keep down the 
number of persons who derive their incomes from the 
proceeds of taxation. And the only way to do that is to 
prevent the State from assuming any duty that can pos- 
sibly be performed for society b}^ private persons, or 
by voluntary combinations of them. This is intensely 
the interest and duty of those classes which bear the 
burden of. maintaining the State. The truth is, they 
alone should have any voice in imposing taxes. 

It may seem strange after what I have said of universal 
suffrage, that I should suggest any means of mitigating 
so radical an evil. Yet I will urge some means which 
may do much for the protection of rights, otherwise left 
without any safeguard where manhood suffrage usurps all 
power. 

Without directly interfering with tliis suffrage where 
it has been established, we should introduce a representa- 
tion of property as well as persons ; a justifiable mode of 
modifying the evil. All persons who pay taxes should 
have a voice in imposing them. This would include 
many who now have no vote, all women and children, 
who have taxable property. 

But as elections are in themselves corrupting and 
practical evils (it is well known that of all legal insti- 
tutions of civil society, the most corrupt and demoraliz- 
ing are elections), in order to protect women from the 



208 

effects of taking an active part in political and election- 
eering intrigues, and having to elbow their way to the 
polls ; all of which is very unsuitable and distasteful to 
most women, tending strongly to unsex them — to guard 
against this demoralization, women having taxed property 
should vote only by a power of attorney, a short form 
being prescribed by law, the power to be retained by the 
managers of elections to guard against frauds. In the 
ease of a child having taxable property his legal guardian 
should vote for him. Any man, having taxable property, 
in more than one election district, should have a vote 
in each of those election districts. 

The following classes of persons should have no votes : 
1, Ko one receiving aid or relief for himself or one of 
his family, from any established charity to which he is 
not a regular contributor. 2. I^o soldier, or seaman in 
the navy. For the officers can induce most of the men 
to vote at their dictation. 3. 'No one who has been con- 
victed of a felony or any disgraceful offense, as perjury 
or taking a bribe. 4. No one having on record against 
him an unpaid liability either to the State or a jDrivate 
person, even as an insolvent bankrupt. 

You would thus get rid of many objectionable voters 
who do not support the State, but are rather a burden on 
the community ; and gain many responsible tax-paying 
voters in place of them. It is very important to exclude 
voters who have proved themselves not trustworthy. 
The franchise is not a property to be made a profit of. 
It is a responsibility to be used as a safeguard for your- 
self and for others. 

The welfare of a nation is far safer under the care of 
those who have something they seek to preserve : acquired 
and vested rights, than under the control of those who 



209 

are scrambling for wliat tliey can get. For all the higher 
purposes of life outside of their habitual occupations, 
most men are mere creatures of impulse, and will be in 
spite of State education. There is no training to induce 
thought, caution, resjDonsibilitj, on the average man, 
equal to the possession and care of some property. 

The great blunder of these revolutionizing remodellers 
of the condition of mankind, in their aim to raise the 
masses to a state of perfectibility ; is their utter miscon- 
ception of the design of that Kature which rules the 
world we live in. The more we inquire into the history, 
nature, and condition of this world, and of ourselves, its 
chief inhabitants, the more evident it becomes that it 
was not designed for a place or a state of general and 
durable happiness, or even content. We are discontented, 
dissatisfied creatures, and will continue so under any 
social and political conditions. The only step man has 
ever made toward jjerfection, has been an occasional 
approach to the perfection of criminality. 

That Greek philosopher, who has perhaps for twenty 
centuries, exercised most influence over the minds of 
deep thinkers, expressed most forcibly in a few words 
when dying, the career natural to man : " I was born 
crying, I have lived troubled, I die anxious." Our 
modern philosophers may not know that their careers 
may be epitomized in these few words. Still less would 
they share in the credulity implied in these words of 
Lord Bacon : "I would rather believe in all the fables of 
the legend, and of the Talmud, and of the Alcoran, than 
that this universal frame is without a mind," To the 
u.ntutored eye, gazing on the full moon, it is but a silvery 
disk. To the scientific eye aided by the telescope, it 
becomes a sphere. The moon's lihrations showing nar- 



310 

row strips of the other side not usually turned to us, 
which we can never see fully from this earth. So he 
who speculates on the nature of this life and world, as a 
whole before his eyes, and not a part only, is sure to go 
astray. Like the librcvtions of the moon, there are indi- 
cations in this life and world, that we see here one side 
only. The other, and it is likely, the larger part, is hid- 
den by a curtain which affords us but narrow glimpses of 
what lies beyond. The chief and true cause of the errors 
of our would-be political philosophers, I will endeavor to 
trace in our next section. 



LYIII. 

Since the days of Lucretius, the brilliant poetical ex-, 
pounder of the material philosophy, there never have 
been so many worshipers of matter infesting the world", 
as at this time. Their influence is wide-spread. .Almost 
all the wildest political theorists, to whom we have had 
occasion to allude, are of this school. 

All these philosophers tell us, in tones of more than papal 
infallibility — -for they feel none of the diffidence of Sir 
Isaac Newton, who, when some one expressed surprise 
at the extent of his knowledge, and wondered what it 
was that he did not know, replied, " I am as a child pick- 
ing up shells upon the shore of that great ocean, Truth" — 
they assert that the only possible sources of activity and 
impulse in the world are the mechanical powers, and the 
chemical agents of physical Nature. 

It is astonishing how much these seemingly abstract 
speculations are influencing, not for good, the moral, 
social, and political condition of the world we live in. 



211 

The vanity and presumption of these material sophists, 
and their bigoted allegiance to the supremacy and uni- 
versal reign of matter, is so absolute ; that we can only 
liken them to that fellow, who, the other day, insisted on 
breaking ojDen the tomb of Shakespeare, and taking out 
his skull, to see if it was like — his own I 

As I have had some experiences, which 1 cannot account 
for on their theories ; which I have had expounded to me 
on a late occasion by a zealous disciple and copyist of 
Tyndall ; I still doubt the infallibility of their dogma — 
that every effect is the result of a material, physical 
cause — so I will take the liberty to state a case or two ; 
not, of course, with the hoj^e of altering their established 
convictions ; which are built on too solid and material 
ground to be shaken, 

1. A man with a full purse in his pocket, passing- 
through a dark lane at night, is stricken down with a 
bludgeon, has his skull fractured, and dies of something 
very like apoplexy. Here is a material, physical cause, 
producing a material, physical effect. 

2. Another man — he called himself a merchant, but 
was a financial gambler of the most reckless type — had 
risked more tlian all his own wealth, and much of other 
people's, in a bold, hazardous venture abroad — and has 
become anxious as to the result. 

He receives a dispatch from his foreign correspondent. 
But it is written in French ; and he cannot read French. 
So the letter produces no effect but to aggravate his 
anxiety and excitement. But when his clerk, better 
educated as to the Frencli tongue, comes in, and translates 
it for him, announcing his utter ruin ; the stroke, without 
fracturing his skull, produces much the same effect on his 
brain, as the blndg^eon had on that of the man murdered 



312 

and robbed in the lane. How are we to trace a connected 
cliain of material causes producing this material effect. 

3. Take a more imposing and complicated case. The 
Spanish veterans, in the Low Conntries. are resting idly 
on their arms. The best troops in Europe, in the sixteenth 
century, with a choice of important enterprises before 
them, do nothing for their sovereign's service. Why 
this pause ? 

Their general is awaiting a dispatch from Madrid. It 
comes at last. On opening it he finds that one drop of 
ink has traced two words — Take Breda ! 

At once the troops are in motion. The town is invest- 
ed. The sappers open the trenches. The batteries are 
raised. The guns are mounted. The cannonade opens 
on Breda. After a long and gallant defense of ten 
months, the bull-dog tenacity of the Spaniard carries the 
day. Through the yawning breaches the place is taken 
by assault, sacked, burned, and the garrison and people 
put to the sword. Breda is there no more ! 

If in place of the thought of vengeance, which prompted 
the tracing, witli one drop of ink, the two words — TaTte 
Breda — an emotion of mercy, little known to the breast 
of Philip the Second, had suggested the change of one 
word — Spare Breda — the plij^sical, material results would 
have been reversed. 

Although not a philosopher of the school of matter, 
I know something of the a23plication, and of the 23ropor- 
tioning of material causes, to produce material effects. 

For example. I take a small pistol, charge it with 
twelve grains of fine gunpowder, and on that a leaden 
ball of sixty grains weight. On firing the pistol, I send 
the ball, say, two hundred yards. Wishing to produce a 
greater material effect, I take an Enfield rifie, charge it 



213 

with sixty grains weiglit of musket powder, and a leaden 
ball weighing six hundred grains. On firing the rifle, I 
send tlie ball, say, one thousand yards. Wishing to pro- 
duce a still greater material effect ; I take an Armstrong 
gun, charge it with twelve poimds of cannon powder, 
and an iron or a steel ball weighing one hundred pounds. 
On firing the cannon, I send the ball, say, five miles. 

Growing mischievous in my experiments, and ambitious 
to produce a great and startling effect ; which will be felt 
far and wide, and be remembered long, I, at great cost 
and labor, and much risk to myself, drive a gallery, from 
behind the lines of St. Eoche, under the neutral ground, 
to and through the base of the rock of Gibraltar, making 
several chambers along the length of this rocky promon- 
tory. I store each chamber with some tons of dynamite, 
and connect them all, by a wire, with an electric battery, 
behind the Spanish lines. On firing the dynamite by 
means of the electric battery, what happens ? What has 
been, for nearly two centuries, one of the boasted strong- 
holds of England, and the eyesore and heart-burn of 
Spain, crumbles down into a shattered, ruinous, rocky 
ridge ; no longer domineering over, and insulting the 
Peninsula. England will at last have learned, that, after 
having secured her hold on Malta, it would have been 
poHtic economy sixty years ago, to have exchanged 
Gibraltar for Geuta, just across the straits. 

Now I mil avoid making a blunder, exactly the reverse 
of those habitually made by the worshipers of matter. 
I will not mistake the bludgeon, the pistol, the Enfield 
rifle, the Armstrong gun, the mining gallery, the gun- 
powder, and tlie dynamite, for moral and spiritual 
agencies ; for logical and convincing operations of the im- 
material mind, which, indeed, in all its activity, may 



214: 

make use of some matter, as its slave. I know tliat all 
these instrumental agents I have named, are of the earth, 
earthy. 

I would ask our philosophers to explain this. If the 
ink and paper which made up the French dispatch, which 
killed the gambler, so greedy of lucre, had been used in 
announcing to him the gain of a great fortune ; and he, 
with his heart agitated by hope and fear, had died of the 
shock of joy (quite a possible result with a man of that 
staraj)) —would the ink and paper have been, in either 
case, the material, mortal agents ? 

If Philip the Second, instead of writing, with one drop 
of ink, Take Breda, had used it to write Sjxcre Breda ; 
what was the length, breadth, weight, and color, of that 
material thing, which, used in one way, proved a mortal 
poison to thousands — used in the other way, would have 
proved an antidote to all the evils that destroyed them. 

The fact is that in both cases, immaterial ideas, and 
emotions, having no length, breadth, or weight, defying 
all the tests by which we detect the presence of matter, 
were doing their wonderful work on mattei'. In the case 
of Breda, its fate resulted mediately from a long and 
complicated chain of mental operations in the mind of the 
Spanish general. 

He well knew his master, Philip the Second. That 
his most marked trait was the intensity of his animosities. 
That of all men, he hated most intensely his rebel subject, 
William the Silent, Prince of Orange. The general also 
knew that Breda was the chief feudal lordship of the 
Prince of Orange, and the stronghold he most valued. 
By the aid of these hints, he knew how to interpret the 
tw€> words traced by that one drop of ink. It was to his 
eyes redder than blood. Take Breda meant far more 



21o 

to him, than to another who did not know Philiji of 
Spain as he did. He conkl construe the sentence of 
death, and was too good a soldier not to obey the order 
to the fulh 

Our philosophers may cleave, with devout allegiance, 
to the mechanical powers and chemical agents of material 
Nature. We will not undertake the fruitless task of con- 
verting them to the true faith : there are instrumentali- 
ties around us, freer and more potent than the mechanical 
powers and the chemical agents of material Nature, not to 
be handled, measured, weighed, analyzed like them, or 
bottled up in the laboratory ; defying all the tests by 
which we seek to detect the presence of matter, yet for- 
ever spontaneously at work, unseen, in the world, for evil 
and for good ! 

The End. 



